Keepers of the flame: How the world-famous sausage gets made at Rogers Park’s Romanian Kosher

Despite the legions of Romanian Kosher fans around the world, second-generation owner Arnold Loeb, who died in 2020, never shipped his meats beyond state lines. So instead, diehards came to Rogers Park, stuffed their suitcases and flew back home.

O’Hare International Airport officials were well aware.

“The TSA people know our products because of the number of times they scan something that looks kind of funny. They’ve seen these products in carry-ons,” said Katharine Loeb, Arnold’s daughter, who co-owns the store with her sister, Karen Levin. “We’ve even gotten visits from TSA workers to see what all this fuss is about.”

For a family that started the business over 80 years ago in Romania, fled the Nazi regime by way of the Dominican Republic and reestablished themselves in Chicago, the sausage smuggling is just a thin slice of the butchery’s long-standing lore.

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It began in Bucharest in her grandmother Irene’s kitchen, Loeb said. Eugene Loeb, her grandfather, developed the recipes and produced the sausages himself. After enduring World War II, they fled Romania’s Communist regime and got as close to the United States as they could.

“There was definite war trauma,” Loeb said.

In the Dominican Republic, her grandparents reopened parts of the business before moving to Chicago to meet Arnold — their only child — who was already in the city attending school. Shortly after working under other butchers, Eugene saved enough to start Romanian Kosher over for a third time. Arnold was a college-educated electrical engineer by then, but it didn’t stop his father from roping him into the business for life.

“With Eastern European parents, it’s much more hierarchical,” Loeb said, “so I don’t know if it was framed as an invitation.”

Thanks to their kosher flavors from afar, seas of salami and hard-to-find Jewish products such as kishke and Romanian pastrami, the Loeb family became well-known. So did their shop, where an unmistakably teal-colored wall behind the counter — from which meat hangs as high as basketball hoops — separates the retail and wholesale spaces with carnivorous grace.

“The fact that they survived and thrived as immigrants lent a certain meaning to the business, and it also helped them get away with not-such-great customer service,” she said. “It was seen as part of the charm.”

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Romanian Kosher derived its success in part from the quality products, work ethic and high standards set by Eugene Loeb, who passed them down to his son, Katharine Loeb said. They carved away at sides of beef the size of car bumpers, some of which came from as far as South America. They had to be meticulous.

“He believed in prioritizing quality over profit. If you don’t put the best stuff in, it’s not going to taste like the best stuff,” she said. “There were layers of quality control.”

Despite watching her father and grandfather grow the business and earn the trust of the Jewish community, Loeb said she failed to understand its significance until she was much older. As a teenager, instead of doing drugs or sneaking away, she rebelled by going vegetarian.

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“I don’t think I had any appreciation for all the different parts of Jewish history that represented the backdrop for different iterations of this business,” Loeb said, “and how much survival, bravery and adaptation it took.”

Two years into owning Romanian Kosher with her sister, Loeb said her sense of duty to carry on its legacy is stronger than ever. Her husband, Bruce Fogel, stepped in after Arnold’s passing, helping on the business end to keep things running smoothly. Levin’s husband, Richard, has been a fixture of the store since 1980, and their son-in-law, Devin, is ensuring a fourth generation sees after it.

“There’s something about losing generations of people who were firsthand victims or witnesses to World War II’s atrocities toward Jewish individuals,” Loeb said. “To me, this aspect of being a third-generation owner represents something, especially about immigrant businesses, that is like a connection of witnesses.”

“To have inherited this feels like a huge responsibility,” she said. “It is now in our hands.”

[ Read more about our Keepers of the Flame series here ]

7200 N. Clark St., 773-761-4141, iwantromanian.com

Max Abrams is a freelance writer.

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