Celebrity Delly gets the ‘Kitchen Commando’ treatment
Chef Andre Rush upgraded the Celebrity Delly, a traditional delicatessen in Graham Park Plaza, and shared the results on his “Kitchen Commando” TV series.
The episode on the Falls Church restaurant can be viewed online on the Tubi TV channel.
Rush helped owners Julia Rossler-Thompson and her husband William Thompson update the menu and décor, improve the kitchen logistics, and attract new customers by hosting a big event.
Julia is the daughter of Chuck Rossler who founded Celebrity Delly in 1975. Since he passed away six years ago, she told Rush, she is “terrified of not living up to her father’s legacy.”
Rush, a bulked-up former U.S. Army master sergeant and White House chef, took a look at the old-fashioned décor – featuring Hollywood legends of another era – and said, “This place is desperate for some military ingenuity.”
“Problem number one – they don’t know how to spell deli,” Rush says. Julia’s dad thought it was funny to name the restaurant “delly” like “belly,” she says, but “it’s not funny now.”
After trying several menu items, Rush found “pricy dishes missing the mark on how they are seasoned and sauced.”
“While the food could use some fine-tuning, the real issue is it hasn’t evolved since Julia’s dad ran it, Rush says. “They say they’re afraid to mess with his vision.”
Rush came up with a plan to give the Celebrity Delly a “strategic refresh by modernizing the décor without losing dad’s humor and charm.”
“This place was packed for years,” Julia recalls. “People would dress up on weekends. It was the busiest place. It was the coolest place to go.”
That gave Rush an idea – invite the public to a black-tie pre-set, five-course dinner for $35 – with new versions of the restaurant’s existing menu items.
During a 48-hour “bootcamp,” he brightened the interior with lots of red, updated the Hollywood theme, and added an Instagram-able backdrop. He also taught the staff to better manage portion consistency and work as a team to prepare new dishes for the pre-set dinner.
The first course consisted of three elegant canapes based on Celebrity Delly’s popular menu items and renamed “up in smoke” smoked salmon, “some like it hot” pastrami, and “children of the corned beef.”
For the next course, Rush elevated the restaurant’s “birdcage burrata” salad by adding smoked fish, toasted pine nuts, and fresh vegetables. The Celebrity Delly’s matzoh ball soup was the star of the third course, only this version had roasted red and yellow peppers and torched cheese crostini.
The main course, “beauty and the brisket,” augmented the restaurant’s popular brisket with mushroom sauce, mashed parsnips, and roasted carrots. For dessert, diners got frozen chocolate cookie pops covered in gold sprinkles.
Since the show aired, Julia and William are rolling out one new menu item each week and plan to host more special multi-course dinners.
“Our food is amazing and we’re so appreciative of our loyal customer base,” Julia says. “We just need people to give us a try. We’ve already had new customers come in to dine with us as a result of ‘Kitchen Commando’, and we hope to see more new faces trying our delicious food in the coming weeks and months.”
22 responses to “Celebrity Delly gets the ‘Kitchen Commando’ treatment”
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Salvadoran or Indian food menu might draw more people from that immediate area.
There are plenty of those shops around, we don’t need to convert a NY Jewish Deli!
Hi, I’m the owner of Celebrity Delly we never changed anything. He just had a great idea to bring in once a month a five course meal that we’re probably going to do once every five months nothings changed we’ve got all the great same food.!
Hi! I am the owner of Celebrity Delly. We didn’t change anything.
Thank you still all the great same food
As a customer since 1976, I don’t need a five course meal at a deli. All I need is a fat meat filled sandwich, made to order. I watched this tv show and it broke my heart that they went the way of some cheesy restaurant remake show.
I get it, business is off. We’re coming out of a pandemic and it hurt all restaurants. Even killed some of them.
Please don’t forget the basics. Your food stands for itself. Be by for lunch in a few days.
agree 100%. The frozen dairy bar re-did themselves and lost all of their charm, and subsequently lost their restaurant.
It’s one thing to evolve and adapt. But try to stick to some core things that people do come to you for. Great deli food is why I go. huge amounts of meat.
Agree
Yup, We go there when we want a good sandwich from a deli. Their fries are great too. As far as I know, there are few options for a good old fashioned deli in mason district. At some point, the restaurant was handed over to someone else to run and it definitely went down hill. It did seem to be getting better again once those people left. They can do the new fancy stuff to pull in new people but I want my good pastrami sandwich so I hope they don’t forget what made them great to begin with.
Hi! Thank you I’m the owner of Celebrity Delly. I really appreciate your comments. We’re not gonna change anything we’re gonna have all the same grade food and just offer even better food on top of it. Nothing will change except for getting better.! Just loves having exposure on a TV show
Hey Julie, I don’t feel that the Kitchen Commando show and even this article is doing Celebrity Delly any favors. My friends and I think that the show came off as some gimmick chef there to save the day of a failing restaurant in a failing shopping center. Come on, his number one complaint is the way you spelled Delly? My first thought was that Celebrity Delly has jumped the shark.
This article doesn’t say much about how good the food has been for years. Long before this so called 48 hour boot camp.
It was really hard to watch for someone who has eaten there more than I can remember. I’ll pass on the five course fine dining, but will continue coming for the NY Delly. Good Luck
I am the owner of Celebrity Deli. I appreciate your comment. We are not changing anything. We are just going to be adding new and improved stuff and keep all of the original.
Why are some of the coziest places being turned into plastic palaces ?
Or is it me getting old ?
Hi! We never changed anything on the owner of Celebrity Delly. He just was offering a special menu just to do like every five months to bring different people and it was more for fun, but we are always going to offer new things on a menu but we will never change the
Sorry to see the change. That place was always so crowded we could barely get in so we didn’t go very often and with half of the stores shut down in that mall to make way for a housing development we had little incentive to spend time in that shopping center. Glad we have been warned about the changes so we can cross that place off of our list completely.
Hi, I read your comment on the owner of Celebrity deli we didn’t change anything. Chef Rush just offered a five course meal to serve like every five months just to bring new people and we’re keeping all the same stuff not changing anything so hopefully you won’t cross us off the list
Sorry, but we did not go back after we saw a mouse….
Sorry! We do not have any mice at all. I don’t know why you would say something like that. We keep a clean restaurant and we have a company cleaning a restaurant three hours a night, and we do not miss any nights at all. You can even see in the show there was no cleaning at all because we keep the restaurant spotless
And Why Wasn’t I Invited To “Dress Up Diners”???
Had Been Very Unique Decor–Kind Of Fun To Look At All The Memorabilia.
Oh Well — Hope The Food Is As Good.
We LOVE Celebrity Delly! We’ve lived here since the mid ’80s and will never stop frequenting the best deli around!. BIG pastrami sandwiches, best tuna melts ever, delicious fries and… onion rings? Great staff, too. Come on! THE BEST!
THANK YOU!! Means a lot to me!!
I always remembered the food at Celebrity being super-tasty, especially when I lived in Coralain Gardens in the 90’s. But as they say, the only constant is CHANGE. Don’t be afraid to transform. You gotta adapt, especially for the next gens who live on social media. Old schoolers may be vocal on here and are probably over-represented.
Stick to your new game plan — combine the old AND new!