The ‘heart and soul’ of this Jewish deli in Hialeah is retiring after 65 years
Junior Biggers watched the last Jewish deli in Hialeah go from bustling to run down and circle all the way back to ironically run down.
In 65 years there, he’s seen it all change.
He watched the neighborhood around Stephen’s Deli in east Hialeah go from Jewish garment district to hopeful arts district — complete with craft beer brewery. From the place a Black U.S. Air Force logistics officer like him could get only a dishwashing job in 1957 Miami to being the only person who remembered how to carve the house-made pastrami by hand.
Henderson “Junior” Biggers outlasted Jim Crow. He stayed on through eight owners (one owned it twice) and a name change to Kush Hialeah. He endured until he was the only constant in a restaurant that the latest owner, Matt Kuscher, restored to ironically cool with wood paneling, mustard tile floors and a speakeasy out back.
At 85, Junior Biggers is ready to let it go on without him.
Biggers will retire at the end of the year, after his 86th birthday in December.
“I always said I’d listen to my body,” he said, “and I feel it’s time.”
The restaurant is honoring him with Junior Biggers Day on Oct. 21, when all the prices will be set to what Biggers remembered them when he was hired in November 1957, three years after the deli opened:
Cheeseburgers will cost 57 cents. Egg creams, a quarter. (Sorry, pastrami sandwiches won’t drop to the ancient 75 cents.)
Kuscher cajoled Biggers to stay on when he bought and renovated the restaurant in 2019. He wanted someone to teach his staff the old ways of a Jewish deli — and how to treat one another.
“Without Junior we would have never taken over this institution,” he wrote the Miami Herald in an email. “He is the heart and soul of Stephen’s and the only reason there is a story to tell.”
One of nine siblings to grow up in the textile town of Union Springs, Ala., Biggers joined the military hoping to take advantage of the GI Bill so he could attend college afterward. But the program was canceled in 1956.
Instead Biggers moved to Miami in 1957 to live with his brother after serving in New Mexico and Okinawa, Japan, working in military logistics — ensuring cargo and people ended up where they were supposed to be.
He started washing dishes at Stephen’s, at 1000 E. 16th St., Hialeah.
“Blacks could only get certain jobs,” Biggers told the Herald three years ago.
But soon, he “Wally Pipped” the cook (a reference he’s the only one old enough on staff to laugh at) when the man broke his leg in a car accident. He learned the art of carefully slicing pastrami and corned beef to make the most of the meat. And to get the thinness and texture just right for a piled-high sandwich.
Kuscher even built an open area where diners could watch Biggers carve the pastrami, before COVID.
It let the world rediscover him. The city of Hialeah named August, 5, 2022, Junior Biggers Day. And the restaurant’s Jewban sandwich (a mix of a Cuban and Ruben), for which Biggers sliced the corned beef daily, was named one of the best 25 sandwiches in the world, by Timeout.
“Having him showcase his work ethic in his 80s is something that my younger staff and myself can never unsee,” Kuscher said.
Biggers passed down that skill to the current staff half a century later — including the chef’s 16-year-old son.
“He’s a consummate professional at the ripe old age of 85,” chef Leo Osorio wrote the Herald in an email. “He’s inspired me to maintain a steadfast outlook on working in a kitchen.”
Now it’s time to take pressure off the left knee he hurt playing high school basketball. (The sport runs in his blood: He’s the maternal grandfather to Miami Heat star Udonis Haslem, who visits the restaurant often with his family.)
He’ll spend his time fishing with his brother in Carol City, working on a long list of honey-dos with his wife of 54 years, and playing with his more-than-20 great-grandchildren.
He might even check up on his protegees — from the dining room.
“I think I’ll come by,” he said, “and have a corned beef sandwich.”
Junior Biggers Day
When: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Oct. 21
Where: Kush by Stephen’s Hialeah, 1000 E 16th St., Hialeah
Info: kushhospitality.com/locations/stephens
This story was originally published October 21, 2022 at 4:30 AM.
