Deli King, i.m.

I checked in this morning on a restaurant from my Allston-Brighton past, Deli King, which relocated to Tewksbury, Massachusetts, in 1989. All I knew back then was that the restaurant had disappeared from the northeast corner of Harvard and Commonwealth Avenues sometime after I left Boston. I learned about Deli King’s new home a couple of years ago but never made it to Tewksbury.

And now I’ve learned that Deli King closed in 2024. The local news reported that the restaurant’s owners, brothers-in-law Arthur Agganis and Dimitrios Gomatos, were planning to visit Greece in their retirement.

I loved Deli King, sometimes for breakfast, sometimes for dinner after a long day of grad-studenting (souvlaki, please). Elaine and I were eating there individually before we met — she, sometimes twice a day, as her Comm. Ave. apartment had no kitchen.

I remember always being struck by the consummate hospitality — ξενία, xenia — of the Deli King crew. You could be an unhoused person who had put together enough spare change for a meal, and you’d be treated with the same courtesy as someone in a jacket and tie. “What can I get for you, my friend?” was always Arthur’s opening question.

What I especially liked in the news report about the restaurant’s closing: the food looks the same. As Elaine says, why mess with perfection?

Deli King’s website is still up. Souvlaki, please.