At Zeidler’s Café, the only thing spread more than cream cheese is kindness. It provides a taste of fun with nods to LA’s ever-evolving food scene, featuring unique items like matzo ball ramen and kosher dill pickle fries. Rob Eshman recounts the personal stories which made namesake and Skirball Founding Trustee Marvin Zeidler a true “knish in shining armor.”

One afternoon several years ago I pulled up to our home after work to find a spotless Porsche Panamera in our driveway, its trunk wide open. I got out of my car and looked in the trunk, where there was a large cardboard box—full of goat manure. “Marv?” I called out. “Marv?” A moment later, Marvin Zeidler came out from our side gate, holding a shovel. Marv was then in his eighties. He was bald, with a signature bushy gray handlebar mustache and sparkly blue eyes. Beside his garden shovel he held another bag of goat manure. “Hey Rob,” he said. “I took you up on your offer.”

Marv and his wife Judy lived in a beautiful Brentwood home. Modern art sculptures studded the yard, along with a full manicured bocce ball court and a lush vegetable garden, where Marv tended to a crop of fava beans. Back then, Naomi and I kept two pygmy goats in our Venice backyard, Goldie Horn and Ollie, and I had told Marv that their manure acted like plant steroids, especially for favas. He said he’d swing by sometime and pick some up, but I assumed he meant it like when someone says, “I put in a pool” or “I built a deck” or “Let’s have lunch.” Marv could have had a team of landscapers tend to his garden’s every need. He could have sent his guys to do his dirty work. But here he was, at the end of the workday, backing up his $120,000 Porsche to fill with goat manure.

This week, when I heard from his daughter Susie that Marv died May 7, at the age of 98, that driveway moment came immediately to mind. But there are other reasons to miss Marv Zeidler

‘The perfect restaurant’

Before I met Marv, Naomi and I regularly ate at the Broadway Deli, which Marv opened in 1990. Born in Boyle Heights, Marv started in the men’s fashion business, then turned to restaurants. In 1985, he opened his first restaurant, Citrus, on Melrose, with his friend Michel Richard. He went on to open Capo, Cora’s Café, Brass Cap, Brentwood, Brentwood Café, and the Broadway Deli, which, to me, epitomized Marv’s taste: hospitality. Broadway Deli’s huge space, which anchored Santa Monica’s then-newly refurbished Third Street Promenade, had tables spaced around an island bar, a long counter facing an open kitchen, a deli and grocery section, and comfortable booths. Long before anyone was talking about the importance of a third space, where people can gather outside of work and home, Broadway Deli epitomized one. The food was both deli and un-deli. You could get an endive, arugula and goat cheese salad, or a bowl of chicken soup. Blintzes or penne pomodoro. French onion soup or a malted—or a Manhattan.

As I write this, I realize it sounds like the Cheesecake Factory, but there was nothing basic or bland about the food. “Suppose somebody took all the good qualities of a deli,” wrote Ruth Reichl when Broadway Deli opened in 1990, “and then gave them a California twist? Suppose the menu was big, but the food was light? Suppose the room was big, but the ambience was airy? Suppose the waiters were actually nice? What if the take-out had an upscale attitude? You’d have the perfect restaurant for the ‘90s. You’d have the Broadway Deli.”

Reichl was wrong about one thing. The Broadway Deli, which was forced to close when the landlord jacked the lease in 2010, would be the perfect restaurant now as well. And that’s because it reflected the essence of the man who created it.

Warm, welcoming, delicious

Marv was joyful, welcoming, and loved good food. I didn’t know him as a businessman, but as an enthusiast and host. He and Judy, a cookbook author and, from what I could tell, the absolute love of his life, lavished their friends with good food and good times.

Many years ago, at a dinner party at their home, Marv rushed back and forth from the kitchen to the dining room, serving a risotto he had just made, obsessing that no guest receive even a slightly cooled plate. Another evening, they hosted their friend Dario Cecchini, the now-famous Tuscan butcher, who considered Marv and Judy his dad and mom. When I told Cecchini I was friends with Marv and Judy, he threw his arms around me and hugged me. “Then we are family!” he said.

Too many restaurants these days are impersonal, with cookie-cutter menus. Marv’s restaurants reflected Marv. They were warm, welcoming, and obsessed with serving very good food. No wonder he succeeded in a notoriously tough business.

The next good thing

After Judy died in 2022, I called Marv to see if I could swing by with lunch. I made sourdough bread, gazpacho, tuna and white bean salad, and homemade biscotti. Marv, Naomi, and I sat in his kitchen, sipped from his wine—Marv was a renowned wine judge—and caught up. The loss of Judy and their son Marc hurt deeply, but he had a large, loving family— five great-grandchildren—great friends, great memories.

Mostly, he wanted to know what was up with us, where we had traveled, and what amazing things we had eaten. At the end, I poured us some artichoke digestif I had made. “That’s just great!” he said. “What is that?” The excitement and enthusiasm for the next good thing returned—he was Marv, holding a shovel and a bag of goat manure in my driveway.

“How simple and frugal a thing is happiness,” said Zorba the Greek in Nikos Kazantzakis’s novel. With his mustache, twinkly eyes, and appetite, Marv always struck me as a nice Jewish Zorba. A glass of wine, some good food—and the joy one gets from sharing it all with others.

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Rob Eshman is senior columnist for The Forward and the director of the Karsh Journalism Fellowship. This story originally appeared in his Substack, Foodaism and has been edited for content. 

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RECIPE

WESTSIDE WHITE BEAN AND TUNA SALAD

This is the lunch dish I brought over to Marv’s house on our last visit. Take the traditional Tuscan white bean and tuna salad (beans, tuna, onion, olive oil) and add more vegetables, including avocado. (But don’t sweat the details, improvise with whatever vegetables are handy.) If you keep canned tuna and those boxes of cooked cannellini beans in the cupboard, this salad takes about five minutes to make.

Ingredients

2 cans of olive oil-packed tuna

1 cup dried cannellini beans or two 13 oz. boxes cooked

1 ripe tomato, cut in eight wedges

1 bunch (about 2 cups) fresh arugula leaves, washed, dried, and sliced

1/4 cup chopped celery and leaves 1/2 avocado, cut in 1/2-inch cubes

1 tablespoon chopped chives or green onions

1/2 sweet pepper, thinly sliced 1/4 cup chopped Italian parsley 1/2 cup extra version olive oil 1 lemon 

Instructions

Serves 4–6.

If using dried beans, soak overnight, then drain, place in a large pot, bring to a boil, and simmer about 1 hour until tender. Drain and toss with a little olive oil. For prepared beans, drain boxed or canned beans and quickly rinse.

Set the tomato wedges and avocado aside. In a large bowl, mix all the other ingredients gently together. You want irregular lashings of tuna throughout.

Strew the avocado and tomato across the top, drizzle with some more olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and freshly ground pepper.

Serve cold or at room temperature.