Rob Woloshin is no stranger to the demands of the food service industry and the dedication it entails.
From the Philly bar scene to director of housekeeping at a local hotel, Woloshin eventually had the opportunity to open a Jewish-run delicatessen he hoped to refresh with a more youthful perspective.
After opening Manny’s Delicatessen seven years ago with co-owners Jeremy and Chase Thomas, a resurgence of modernized Jewish delicatessens around Bucks and Montgomery counties led his team to open a second location, Manny’s Deli Stop, last year in Willow Grove.
Woloshin and his wife, Chelsea, have two children, Cole (5) and Sloane (3). While running a successful restaurant demands that Rob maintain it to the best of his ability, he makes it a point to spend as much time with his kids as possible. Chelsea has recently become a fixture at Manny’s Deli Stop in Willow Grove, working together with her husband and the staff that regard each other much like a close-knit family.
Do you feel that the knowledge and experience you’ve accrued over the years in food service, and later as a restauranteur, has given you a unique perspective on parenting?
Just dealing with random things that come up and different issues and thinking on your feet, which you have to be good at as a restaurant owner, like a pipe burst or this breaks, you know? Your whole system goes down in the middle of the day. You got to be able to roll with the punches and figure it out, and quickly, because nobody cares that your point of sales system went down. They want their sandwich, and they don’t want to wait an extra five minutes because you can’t take their payment. You got to figure it out. So, those types of things and, like, staying calm and just, like, laughing about it. I would say that there’s a lot of overlaps [in running a business and having kids].”
How do you find balance between your work and family life?
There’s times where it’s challenging for sure, like, if you’re in one of those stretches where your staffing’s a little messy and you’re busy, and a normal eight- to 10-hour day is now a 14-hour day for three straight weeks or, like, a couple months straight. It’s draining but, in general, I’ve done my best. [With] deli, especially, we close at 7 [p.m.], so even if I close, which I don’t even close very often anymore, I’m home by 5 [p.m.] just to have dinner with my kids. If I’m in early, I’m in early, but I try to get in there in the morning with the kids. This is unlike most restaurants, but I’m at the point where I try to be off on the weekends… My dad was really good, like, he was always at my soccer games, and that will be me at my kids’ games.
What are the most rewarding aspects of parenthood?
When you’ve been teaching [your kids] something over and over and then you watch them do it without having to tell them to do it. Especially when it’s like, ‘Be nice to him.’ It was during [Cole’s] basketball game where nobody was scoring and a kid got hit in the face. Cole, my son, went over. He, like, stopped playing and was like, ‘Hey, are you OK?’ The other thing is just, like, laying in bed, doing nothing, and having two kids lay on you and just, like, no expectations and just wanting to hang and chill.
What is the main lesson you hope your children learn from you?
So, not caring what other people think, and not doing something because somebody else is doing it, and just, like, being comfortable in their own skin to make a decision.
What’s your favorite thing about working at Manny’s during Jewish holidays, be it Hanukkah, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, etc.? How does your family celebrate Jewish holidays?
So, Hanukkah? We celebrate every night. If we can’t get both sides [of the family] all together for one night, like, we’ll do a dinner one night. This year we did a dinner with my wife’s family, a dinner with my family, because we couldn’t all get together. You know, we do the traditional Hanukkah stuff—latkes, soup, donuts. This year, it’s nice we’re around, so every night we do the candles with the kids and try to get the the traditions that I always did—we always did the same things when I was a kid.
Family Favorites
Favorite Meal: Pasta of any sort. That’s the most crowd favorite.
Dessert: We’re a big ice cream sundae family.
Local Spot: Mondauk Commons — Upper Dublin Park
Vacation Spots: We have been going to Hershey every year
