I remember walking off the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror ride at Walt Disney World in Orlando and thinking to myself, "I could really go for a pastrami Reuben right about now" only to then realize there was no delicatessen at Disney World. But how times...

In the 1930s, there were 5,000 delis in New York City. By way of comparison, Starbucks, which seems to be on every street corner, has 241 outlets in New York. And those delis were much more than just places to get coffee or a pastrami. “I’ll...