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February 2014
Never Closing
Never Quitting:
A look at the
complicated
life of
Marc
Katz
pg. 33
US $5.99
CAN $4.99
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Never Closes
Words James Hibberd Photos Sung Park
I
magine it’s the summer of 1977 and you’re
driving a lime-green Plymouth Fury down
West Sixth Street. Hitting a red light at Lamar Boulevard , you stop the car and sweat
against the cracked vinyl seat. Suddenly a man
comes running out of the sales office of the McMorris Ford auto dealership, once located where
GSD&M is today. He’s a salesman wearing
cowboy boots and a western shirt. Waving and
grinning, he’s headed straight for your car. You
don’t know him; you only know this stoplight is
taking way too long. The salesman taps on your
passenger window. You sigh, lean over and roll
it down.
``I can’t help it, I gotta tell ya,’’ he pants in a
New York accent. ``Somebody just came in here
looking to buy a green, 5-year-old Plymouth
Fury -- just like this one! This is too amazing!
Pull into the lot and we’ll talk about it.”
And that’s how Marc Katz sold more new Pintos than any other salesman on the lot.
It’s not the age that matters, it’s the mileage.
From his job at McMorris Ford, Marc Katz
didn’t cover much physical distance in 21 years.
Just a couple of blocks from the dealership, he
established Katz’s Deli and, later, Top of the
Marc nightclub. But during that time, Katz shot
through three turbulent marriages. He lost his
faith in God, and discovered it again. He got
hooked on drugs and got off them. He found
windows of almost every car and home in the
city. He passed ownership of the deli to his son,
like his father once passed a restaurant to him.
Pulling his 1966 Cadillac DeVille convertible
into the 5-minute zone in front of his restaurant,
Katz may look like a carnival gangster in his
tinted sunglasses and deli-themed tie, but he
never lets the miles show. Good at selling Pintos,
and even better at selling Reuben sandwiches,
Katz has always been best at selling himself.
``Hello! Hello!’’ he says, and enters the deli.
Katz makes his way through the foyer to the
dining room, shaking hands and slapping backs.
Watching him here, in his natural environment,
it’s impossible not to admire him. Politicians
schmoozing with their constituents aren’t half as
confident; talk show hosts working their audience aren’t nearly as witty. He inhales the attention and exhales showmanship.
It’s 8 a.m., and an all-too-familiar commercial
is on the radio. Some obnoxious guy is going
on about Top of the Marc and Katz’s Deli, his
cheese-grater voice scraping eardrums through
alarm clock radios and commuter car stereos. As
the pitchman approaches the end of the script,
he ratchets up the screech factor for the punchline you know by heart.
`I can’t help it! I gotta tell ya! Katz’s never closes!!” And you wonder: ``How does he get away
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ow does a deli owner, of all people, get
away with passing himself off as an
A-list celebrity? Get away with parading
around in his Caddy like a king? There are two
answers. First, Katz is a gifted huckster. When
not purchasing
airtime for his ventures, Katz tempts
the press into doing
his dirty work for
him. Like the time
he took a bagel on
his vacation to the
Antarctic just so
he could hype it as
``the first bagel ever
to reach the South
Pole.’’ Or when he
hired a uniformed
security guard to feed parking meters outside his
restaurant, vowing to fight the city if they dared
ticket his customers.
With the press at his disposal and the airwaves
saturated, he turns his attention to community
relations. Ten percent of sales from one dining
room table goes to benefit causes, a program
that’s been adopted by many restaurants nationwide. Katz’s Deli was the No. 1 independent
fund-raiser for AIDS Services of Austin last year.
``We’re really lucky to have him,’’ says Kirk
Rice, development director at AIDS Services.
``He raised more than
$30,000, and this year
he’s helping Project
Transitions. He doesn’t
pick just one beneficiary; he keeps changing
organizations and
spreading the wealth.”
In a PBS special on
innovative small businesses, Katz explained
he simply uses the
same charitable policies as Merrill Lynch
and Coca-Cola. Anybody can serve good food,
Katz figures, but if you can gain regard among
the community and make customers feel generous by dining at your restaurant . . . well, that’s a
whole other knish.
The second reason Katz can play culinary rock
star is because he’s sincere. You can tell Katz gen-
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uinely believes in what he is selling, whether it’s
his matzo ball soup, W.C. Clark’s blues set at Top
of the Marc or his own significance. The overwhelming sincerity turns his pomposity and narcissism into positive personality traits. You like
Katz for the same reasons you dislike other. ``I’m
the most recognized local personality in Austin,
and I love it,’’ Katz says. ``There’s nothing wrong
with going into a 7-Eleven and the counter guy
says, `How are you, Mr. Katz?’ There’s a lot of
ego gratification, but it’s a luxury I can afford.”
I
“I’m the most
recognized local
personality in
Austin, and I love
it.” - Marc Katz
frequented the place; I knew the problem. There
were things going on upstairs, where Top of the
Marc is now, that people would go to jail for.
There was a whorehouse, a poker game, photography . . . all sorts of stuff. But me, I was enamored with the property. Being from New York,
just the idea of having a restaurant with a parking lot had me beside myself.”
H
e had once wanted to get away from
the restaurant business, sure, but when
he relocated to Austin he experienced a
``tremendously positive culture shock.’’ He realized it wasn’t running a restaurant that he disliked, but running a restaurant in New York City.
Reinventing his father’s deli in Austin seemed
like a terrific idea. His friends, loan officers and
former co-workers all agreed: Katz was nuts. He
couldn’t stop. He wouldn’t stop.
s all this what the New York native wanted to
achieve in Austin? No. Katz came to Austin to
escape the restaurant business.
``When he first came in, he said he was tired of
the hassle in New York,’’ drawls Jim Wood, general manager of McMorris Ford. ``He was a good
salesman; he was real good.’’
Katz sold enough Pintos, Grenadas and T-Birds
at the dealership to regularly win ``Employee
of the Month.’’ For lunch, he often walked to a
restaurant at 618 W. Sixth St. The diner was first
called Caruso’s. Then the Sixth Street Trolley.
Then the San Francisco Bay Club. ``By the third
restaurant, the space had the kiss of death to it,’’
Katz says. ``Nobody wanted to touch it. But I
Clockwise from top left:
1. Marc Katz and wife Melanie stand by the Norman
Rockwell painting ‘Problems We All Face’ at their
Austin condo.
2. Katz, 51, schmoozes with frequent customers Richard Rutter, right, and Ricky Cleveland at Katz’s Deli.
3. Katz takes his usual post in front of the bar at Top
of the Marc while applauding the band the Lucky
Strikes.
4.The back of Katz’s Cadillac DeVille convertible reiterating the fact that “Katz’s Never Kloses.”
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