The Best Food For Over 50 Years
WE KNOW OUR CUSTOMERS NAMES
For the better part of three decades, James and Jean Malin raised their nine children in a four-bedroom Cape Cod house that was located two blocks away from the St. Elizabeth parish in the City of Wilmington.
In 1974, James, a butcher and meat manager, purchased the Stafford’s grocery store at 812 South College Avenue in Newark, so that he could know the feeling of owning his own business.
When the butcher shop and grocery first opened, the entire Malin family lived in a two-bedroom apartment located above the store. James and Jean occupied one bedroom, the three daughters took the second, and the six brothers slept in an attic that did not provide plumbing or heat. The space was dotted with mattresses that were tossed in makeshift angles.
Forty-six years after the Malin brothers first moved from a four-bedroom home to that attic, Malin’s Deli has earned its place as one of the most successful family businesses in Newark. From Monday to Saturday, its has become a place of sure things: the comfort of knowing that customers will enjoy a freshly-made sandwich that will be delivered on time; that they will be welcomed at the door; and that on any given day, there is a strong likelihood that you will carry on a decades-long conversation with Ken and his wife Stephanie; Bob Malin and his wife Barbara; brother Jim; and the store’s matriarch, Mo Miller.
Today, the hundreds of people who regularly visit Malin’s every day are not just customers picking up an award-winning cheese steak or a to-go salad. They are witnesses to how a small business has continually adjusted to one town’s changing identity – the closing of a manufacturing plant, the expansion of a University and the widening breadth of its demographics and culinary tastes.
When they first opened, Malin’s was a 3,000-square-foot butcher shop and grocery store, located beside a successful sub shop. In the late 80s, as large box grocery stores began popping up in Newark, it caused a financial strain on the business. Meanwhile, right next door, the sub shop was pushing out sandwiches to hungry customers at a fast pace. For two years, Ken left the family business to work for the Wonder Bread Company.
Ken gave his employer two weeks’ notice. He got rid of the butcher block. He removed the band saw. He removed the produce case and meat case. Soon, the lines that were forming next door began forming at Malin’s. A year later, the competing sub shop next door packed up and left.
Over the course of the next 30 years, Malin’s has supplied breakfast and lunch to every shift at the former Chrysler plant. It has fed three decades of University of Delaware students and employees — especially members of UD’s athletic department and the Star Campus, whose offices are just down the street.
Every morning, the sweet aroma of coffee permeates the store, and breakfast sandwiches are made and packaged and end up in the hands of early-morning commuters on their way to work. As lunch hour approaches, the Malin family becomes an assembly line of interchangeable parts – taking phone orders, preparing lunches, slicing meats and condiments, patrolling the cash registers and stocking shelves.
