With a computerized checkout system and multiple checkouts Kay’s of today is a far cry from the little deli of the past. But customers whose grandmothers bought their favorite candy here still check out at Mrs. Helen Langberg’s cash register (Photos: Mendel Photography)

Step inside Kay’s Supermarket and Delicatessen on Golders Green Road on a Thursday and you’re likely to find a curious sight. Three cashiers will be sitting at their cash registers serving a few customers while a long line of people snakes toward a single cash register manned by a dignified older woman. Somehow despite the advances of modern technology bar codes and scanners the long-time customers at Kay’s still seek out the personal touch of proprietor Mrs. Helen Langberg. “The ladies all line up telling me about their aches and pains ” she says. “They ask me about recipes how to stop the children crying at night — all sorts of things.”

Mr. Avigdor Langberg smiles. “The workers are all used to it already” he says. “They try encouraging the customers to move to the next till (cash register) but most of them say they’ll wait for my wife. She’ll remember to inquire after one customer’s knee replacement or the other’s einekel’s bar mitzvah.”

Nearly five decades after the Langbergs have taken the helm of the small Kay’s delicatessen growing it far beyond the original small confines they’ve managed to retain the personal touch that first gained them a following.

“We have young grandchildren who come into our shop to buy nosh” says Helen “and I can tell them ‘look this is the candy your grandmother used to buy when she was your age.’ ”

Reluctant Sale 

Kay’s delicatessen was first established in the mid-60s a tiny kosher shop on Golders Green Road. Toward the end of the decade proprietors Mr. and Mrs. Kay — who lived in the flat (apartment) above — realized they could no longer manage the store due to their advancing age. They began searching for a buyer.

Hungarian-born Avigdor Langberg — a fairly recent arrival who’d fled Hungary after the Communist takeover — had a hard time convincing them that he was the man they’d sought. Though he had experience helping out in his immigrant mother’s fruit store and was ready to prove himself in his own shop Mr. Kay refused to sell him the store.

“I want you to succeed” Mr. Kay told young Avigdor “but you seem like a religious young man. And since Sunday is the busiest shopping day you can only manage if you work on Shabbos setting up the stock for the Sunday customers.” Eager to close the deal Mr. Langberg offered instead to work on Motzaei Shabbos. Mr. Kay sold him the shop wondering whether the idealistic immigrant would ever pull through.

If only Mr. Kay was around today he’d marvel to see his tiny shop transformed. Kay’s Supermarket and Delicatessen has now knocked through three adjoining shops and built an even larger storage facility at the back. Not only that the Langbergs have two other branches one on Hamilton Road — also in Golders Green — and the other in Hampstead Suburb.

And the family’s grown along with the business. At 76 Avigdor Langberg still makes the 40-minute drive every day from Stamford Hill to the main Golders Green branch tooversee the smooth running of the business while his daughter Tzirele Gluck runs the office with one of her sons. His oldest son Eli deals with the hundreds of wholesalers and his brother Ari deals with the endless logistical considerations that come along with the business. A grandson runs the Hampstead Garden Suburb store.