The Mom & Pop Store: Meet Husky Deli in West Seattle

Two years on and off the road, interviewing owners of mom and pop stores all over the U.S., changed how I viewed the shops that my wife, Marybeth, and I regularly visit in our West Seattle neighborhood.

I decided that the ideal conclusion for my book was to write about the shopkeepers whom we support and who make our community unique.

My first conversation was with Jack Miller, owner of Husky Deli, which is the commercial, civic and social heart of the Alaska Junction ("The Junction," as we locals call it), where California Avenue Southwest and Southwest Alaska Street converge.

In the center of the 3,000-square-foot store is a large, open rectangular space where a small army of employees (including many family members) can be found every day making sandwiches, slicing cold cuts, selling a wide variety of domestic and imported delicacies (mustards, marinade sauces, wine, chocolates), and dispensing good cheer.

Husky is the quintessential, multigenerational family neighborhood business. It was started in 1932 when Jack's grandfather, Herman, bought an existing store in 1932.

Back then, Herman installed a machine to make ice cream in the store's front window, which (not surprisingly) attracted loads of passers-by. He served a giant scoop of ice cream that was dipped in chocolate, rolled in peanuts and placed in cones. He called his trademarked creation "Husky."

During the Great Depression, he sold his Huskies to public-school lunch programs, which kept his business going.

"We still have the racks that we made them on," said Jack Miller, a friendly, smiling man in his 50s, with a closely cut salt-and-pepper beard.

Herman Miller repaid the customers for their business during the Depression by letting some of them run up a tab if they could not afford to pay for their groceries. Husky has been embraced by the community ever since.

Jack Miller began working in the store as a boy in 1966.

"My dad, John, would wake up my brother and me in the middle of the night and ask us if we'd help him make ice cream. We couldn't say no," he recalled with a smile. "Saturdays at 2 in the morning, we'd start to make ice cream, and we wouldn't finish until 2 in the afternoon. Then my dad would work in the store until he closed at 10 o'clock at night. That was standard for him."

Husky is where you buy ice cream in West Seattle.

As you enter the store, on the left-hand side is the ice-cream counter, where customers can choose from 45 flavors of homemade ice cream, made from ingredients such as Dutch cocoa and real bananas, strawberries and other fruit, much of it from the weekly West Seattle Farmers' Market. Husky churns out as much as a thousand gallons a week.

There are places to sit in the front of the store while people come in to enjoy their favorite guilty pleasure. When my daughter, Fae, was in elementary school, Husky was where she would meet her friends after a school play. On summer nights, people sit outside on the benches in front of Husky, licking their ice-cream cones and watching the pedestrians parade by on California Avenue.

A couple of years ago, a Ben & Jerry's franchise ice-cream store opened at the main intersection of the Junction, a half-block away from Husky. Great location, bad idea.

Locals didn't even bother to redeem the Ben & Jerry's coupons, which had been handed out on the street, for one complimentary ice-cream cone. There was no boycott. In fact, no one said much of anything. They just didn't show up at Ben & Jerry's, which closed less than a year after it opened. We're loyal in West Seattle.

West Seattleites visit Husky for more than ice cream.

"You always run into people you know," said Jack Miller. "That's what makes West Seattle fun. It's a comfort thing to shop with people who know who your dog is and what you're all about.

"Some people come in because they don't have a lot else going on in their life. Visiting Husky every day is a huge part of their life. They get recognized. Someone talks to them. People ask me questions like 'What should I do with my money?' or 'I need some dental work done, who should I call?' "

After the attack on Sept. 11, 2001, "We were packed," said Miller. "People wanted to come to a place where they could be with their neighbors and friends."

Husky provides a sense of history, continuity and community.

"When people who used to live here come back to town, they come to Husky to see if we're still here and still doing the same thing," Miller said.

Jack, one of nine children, is the sole member of his generation still working in the store. But the future is secure with the next generation of the Miller family, which includes 24 cousins, eight of whom are already working behind the counter.

One need only to see the smile on Jack's face to believe him when he says: "I love to do this. I have a relationship with almost everybody who comes in here. In my whole life, I've never not wanted to go to work. It's like a party for me all day long."