If you live in Brooklyn and have eaten bagels and lox during a Sunday brunch, there’s a good chance that the fish came from Acme. Acme has been distributing smoked fish from its Greenpoint warehouse since the mid-1950s. But the story didn’t start then.
A brief history
Russian immigrant Harry Brownstein came to Brooklyn in 1905 and distributed smoked fish, purchased from local smokehouses, to appetizing stores throughout the city with his own horse-drawn wagon. Thirty-two years later, in 1937, Brownstein partnered up with Mike Seltzerman to create a smoked fish company in Brownsville. It was the next year that fresh-out-high-school Rubin Caslow came into the picture, becoming a smoked fish jobber; a few years later he married Brownstein’s daughter Charlotte, who worked as a bookkeeper at the company. Family involvement grew after World War I with Brownstein’s sons Joe and Morty later joining the business. In 1954, Brownstein and his sons opened their own plant – called Acme Smoked Fish – that was a rented space at 26 Gem Street in Greenpoint. The name “Acme” was partially chosen because it would be listed first in the physical Yellow Pages directory.
When Brownstein died in 1969, he left his family the business and a legacy of tradition. Within the next couple of years, Robert and Eric Caslow, Rubin’s sons, joined Acme and the business itself expanded into the adjacent Williamsburg Steel building where smoked fish packages would be produced. From the late 1970s to late 1980s, Acme focused on its growing line of smoked fish products and packs that were distributed in multiple supermarket chains. Eric’s sons David and Adam, who joined in 1995 and 2006 respectively, currently represent the fourth generation at Acme.
Acme Co-CEO Adam Caslow told us that he’s executed almost every job there, from cutting fish to driving a truck, in the last 13 years. Those jobs have given him perspective on what it takes to be successful. He provided insight into what personally motivates him to keep the company running, which coincidentally just celebrated its 65th anniversary as a physical location.
“For me it’s a combination of three things: sustaining our family’s multi-generation legacy in smoked seafood, honoring the commitment to our employees to provide safe, continuous employment, and making a product that becomes part of family celebrations where food is the catalyst for the joys of life,” Caslow said.
He also acknowledged that while his detail-oriented grandfather, uncle and father didn’t take many risks, they focused on their core competencies and doing those well, instead. With that said, Caslow attributes Acme’s success to the Brownstein-Caslow family members and to the employees – many of whom are from the neighborhood and have been working there for more than 10 years.
Fish Friday tradition
While Acme Smoked Fish, Blue Hill Bay and Ruby Bay products are available in local supermarkets and major retailers, you can actually visit Acme’s recently expanded factory outlet and buy fresh fish at close-to-wholesale prices. The outlet is open to the public every Friday, 8 am-1 pm, at 30 Gem Street.
The tradition of Fish Friday was introduced last year as a result of being a part of the local community, according to Acme Senior Marketing Manager Ellen Lee-Allen. Metro US reported last year that Greenpoint was home to the country’s second largest Polish population, second only to Chicago. Lee-Allen explained that a lot of their Polish workers, who happen to be Catholic and eat fish on Fridays, wanted to buy and bring home different fish products.
“In the beginning, we really didn’t sell to the consumer directly,” she said. “Now, it’s more than a neighborhood thing – Acme’s become a destination for [those in] the tri-state area. People love to come here.”
Our paper traveled to Greenpoint in early October to personally experience Fish Friday. If you’ve never been there, try to get there as early as possible because the single-file line does get long and even extends onto Gem Street as the morning carries on.
The strong aroma of blended fruit wood chips, which are used to smoke the fish, fills the air. Acme cures their fish with salt before naturally smoking them – either through a cold process (for salmon, tuna and sable) or a hot process (for salmon, tuna, trout, whitefish, and many others) – one batch at a time, using a blend of ingredients that have been in the family recipe for generations. Heat doesn’t exceed 85 degrees in the cold smoking process, which can take up to 20 hours in total. On the other hand, fish need to be cooked at 145 degrees or higher, for at least a half hour, during the hot smoking process. Acme produced 15 million pounds of smoked fish – 9 million of which were salmon – last year alone, according to an October 2019 article by Bloomberg.
As I patiently waited with those eager to get their hands on smoked salmon, Acme workers carted, stickered and stacked boxes of products that were waiting to be picked up for shipment. Among my fellow customers, there were older gentlemen talking about the latest sports scores, a middle-aged woman who looked like she walked right out of the pages of Vogue magazine, a young couple with tattoos planning out the rest of their day, and kids joining their parents since it was a long holiday weekend.
As you make your way closer to the entryway that brings you to the fish selection, there’s a large sign that provides the prices for signature smoked salmon, whitefish, pickled herring, spreads and salmon jerky. There is also Gary’s Fish Friday Special, named after production manager Gary Brownstein, which varies week to week. When I made it to the refrigerated area, Chubby Checker’s “The Twist” played out loud while smiling employees asked customers what they’d like to order and if they wanted to try some samples before making a decision.
After providing your order, an employee hand-cuts and weighs the fish and then gives you your number. Once called, you pay for your fresh protein with either cash or credit card and leave to go to your next destination. The gentleman in front of me, for example, spent nearly $155 on a variety of fish and extras.
By the time I walked back outside, the line was even longer than it was 40 minutes earlier. Based on Acme’s energy and the line’s length, it looks like Fish Friday will remain popular for years to come.
Top photo of Acme’s multi-generations, from Acme’s Instagram
