Mapping the schmoozing gene

The secret to the success of Russ & Daughters, New York City's iconic store that sells the most delicious smoked fish and other accessories (T and I have availed of it), is "schmoozing."

That's according to Mark Russ Federman, who has written an eponymously titled book on the store and its history.

Joel Russ, a Polish-Jewish immigrant of the early 20th century, opened the store in 1914, after he saved enough money from selling herring on an open pushcart.

When Joel's three pretty daughters came to work at the store in 1935, the store was named "Russ & Daughters."

The book has funny tidbits about Joel Russ:

He had to arrange his daughters' marriages because it was hard for them to date, as they smelled too fishy and were too tired to socialize at the end of an extremely hard day's work. But Joel retained the "right of first refusal" and dismissed potential suitors who were not strong enough to schlep barrels of herring, or smart enough to add up a column of numbers on a brown paper bag. Having ascertained that a certain future son-in-law would look good behind the counter, he would tell his daughter, "fine, you can marry him."

Joel was a non-romantic (as most successful business people reportedly are), and called his wife "Zug" which loosely translates from Yiddish into "Hey you!"

Apart from schmoozing, the business culture of Russ & Daughters has also shown remarkable adaptability and has evolved with the local food culture of the Lower East Side, a locality that is now rife with the culture of hipsterism. 

Now they sell sandwiches with names like Super Heeb, Boychick, Shtetl, The Meshugge. The Super Heeb has Sesame bagel, horseradish cream cheese, whitefish salad, and wasabi-flavored flying fish roe.