It's 11:13 a.m. Backpacks zip slowly and pencils are set down quietly. A room of a dozen high school seniors engages in the daily charade, still pretending our English teacher doesn't see our premature exit moves. She does, and we're all kidding ourselves.
"Deli?" my cohort mouths silently to me from across the room. I nod. Looking up, the final half of the 14th minute is ticking away. Our teacher realizes 25 more seconds of Othello is a lost cause and closes the book. At 11:15, the bell tolls, and we head down to the parking lot with most of the other Tampa Prep seniors. We break off into our little packs and pile into cars. With only 40 minutes, it's not as if we can sit down to a leisurely meal and savor the experience. Senior off-campus lunch must be a quick, efficient affair. We are a miniature whirlwind of hungry teenagers.
It's a privilege getting to eat off campus when you're a senior, and after three long years of brown bags or lukewarm cafeteria food we don't take the privilege lightly. You might think we'd settle for the old Taco Chicken Hut, and a few do. By and large, though, we go for things that aren't ...well, disgusting. Take, for example, New Hyde Park Deli. There are at least six to eight of us there every day during our lunch period. Someone realized during the first week of school that the deli staff could whip you up something quick and greet you by name every day. The offerings aren't especially spectacular, but they're a far cry from bad. The fries shine in particular; most of the guys opt to sub them for the standard bag of Ruffles with their Philly. Truly fantastic Phillies? Not especially, but the point is, we're kids, and we don't know truly fantastic food yet. We're not connoisseurs, we're just hungry. This does the job — and more.
Hyde Park Deli also offers delivery, which many juniors manage to arrange most days. Usually, as the seniors file out to the parking lot, the familiar deli car is just pulling up to the flagpole roundabout to dole out the call-ins. When I ask Doug, the deliveryman, if he drives to the school every day, he nods assuredly. "Yeah, every day," he says. "We have regulars. Teachers, too."
Chris Lutz is the face you'll see behind the register. He says he thinks the "Tampa Prep rush" dates back to prior owners of the place, before his father, Don Lutz, took over. At that time, Prep students began to receive regular discounts once they established their presence at the Deli. Chris thinks the real reason the Deli is so popular with students is that "you don't see some new freckle-faced kid at the register every day. You see me, and the same people on the line making your food. It's more laid-back. Nothing is microwaved, everything is fresh."
Hyde Park Deli offers a valuable lesson that many establishments overlook: Earnest customer service and basic quality brings people back — nothing more, nothing less. Granted, we're just ravenous kids in a rush, but we do stick to our guns. At the end of the day, we know what's good.
New Hyde Park Deli, 1500 Cass St., Tampa, 813-254-6400 (delivery).
Andi Kern graduated from Tampa Preparatory this spring; she did her senior internship at Creative Loafing during the month of May.
