To learn more about Charlie Seitzman and Charlie's Deli, check out this article from the Sharon Advocate.

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It's all about the real food at Charlie's Deli

By Ian Shulkin, Correspondent

In an age of canned and freeze-dried foods, it is becoming ever more difficult to find what Charlie Seitzman of Charlie's Deli terms “real food.”

“My business is frequented by many local residents and business people as well as some people who travel long distances to get my hard-to-find homemade food or what I and many of my customers refer to as 'real food,'” he said.

Charlie's Deli, located at the Height's Plaza in Sharon, offers homemade meals cooked with handpicked ingredients – no manufactured products composed of ingredients that would take a spelling-bee winner to pronounce.

With almost 30 years of culinary experience, Seitzman runs the old fashioned delicatessen and prides himself on cooking his own food whenever possible.

“I cook my own corned beef, roast beef, whole all-natural turkeys by the pound or for sandwiches, brisket, roumanian pastrami, chicken pot pies, kasha varnitshkes, grapenut pudding, noodle kugel,” said Seitzman, “we make two kinds of cole slaw from scratch, macaroni salad, and black bean salad. That's just to name some.”

Longtime Sharon resident and former selectman Henry Katz said, “This deli is a hidden gem most people do not know about. It has the best food in the area, and more people from Foxboro come here than from Sharon.”

Seitzman got his first cooking experience from his grandmother, who taught him how to make corned beef, and he got his first taste of the professional food business right after he graduated from Boston University.

He was hired as a manger of the Boston Food Cooperative after volunteering there during college.

“Here I learned about food buying, meat cutting, and store management, as well as many other things,” said Seitzman, “but after working 80-100 hours per week, I got burnt out and went to work at a Greek restaurant and deli. I started as a deli man, learned short order cooking, and became manager of the store. I was then transferred to manage one of their other stores and eventually became a troubleshooter for all four of their stores.”

He later left that business and began working for the Charles River Park Tennis Club, where he was hired to open a restaurant on site.

As with the Greek restaurant, Seitzman's role quickly expanded, and over the next eleven years he also became the manager of the snack bar and Cabana club, then the pool and health club, and eventually became the director of their recreational facilities.

In 1989, he opened a deli in Stoughton, and then went to work at “Life's a Deli” in Post Office Square.

Three years later he joined Steven's Deli at Heights Plaza, where he worked for seven years before he got the opportunity to take over the deli seven years ago.

“I always wanted to own a business, and I enjoy the gratification I get from making 'real food' and watching people enjoy it.”