Guests who dined at Jack’s Deli (14490 Cedar Rd.) in University Heights on Sunday had no idea that it would be their last meal there. Others who would have loved to have dined at Jack’s “one last time” will never get that opportunity. Yesterday, the iconic Jewish delicatessen that was founded by the Markowitz family in 1980, purchased by the Cleveland Restaurant Management Group in 2025, and sold to Don Apel later that same year, closed its doors.
“We knew it was going to be an uphill battle from the beginning,” Apel explains. “We took over a failing restaurant, but we tried. I’m very proud of what we accomplished, but we’ve basically been breaking even for the past four months. I couldn’t even afford to hire a manager.”
Apel says that the economic realities of running an ingredient- and labor-intensive restaurant like Jack’s in today’s environment are untenable…