Niki Russ Federman on "finding and keeping that magic" in a generational food business.

Fourth-generation daughter of New York City's famed Russ and Daughters discusses her experience running a generational food business and finding the sweet spot between continuity and change.

Olivia Rose: What role did food play in your family dynamics growing up?

Niki Russ Federman: The first thought that came to mind is, of course, Russ and Daughters because, growing up, my parents ran Russ and Daughters. Russ and Daughters was the definition of a mom-and-pop. I think about food as enjoyment, food as identity, food as culture, food as livelihood, and business–they are all interconnected. 

I remember some of my earliest memories were at the shop. I experienced food that way, sneaking behind the counter and stealing a bagel, or taking some sweets from the candy counter. Sometimes, my parents would send me on missions to get a roll of quarters from Moishe's Bakery or a hot dog from Katz. Being part of a food ecosystem and food community has been part of me since the very beginning. From a very young age, I understood the power of food because I saw the way it impacted people. So much of people's identity is wrapped up in the food that they eat and why they eat it, and what it reminds them of. Food is a marker of place, and I saw that with Russ and Daughters. It became a part of the experience of being in New York. I've always been aware of the deeper meanings and power of food beyond just something that is either sustenance or enjoyment. And in that way, it's been very meaningful to me.

“...food as enjoyment, food as identity, food as culture, food as livelihood, and business..."

OR: How did your legacy as a fourth-generation daughter of the iconic Russ and Daughters impact your upbringing? 

NRF: Growing up, I was always connected to Russ and Daughter. I knew that it held a lot of meaning for a lot of people. You say "Russ and Daughters," and there's this spark, and then people have some memory or story, and it's so beautiful. It never gets old. 

At the same time, when I was growing up, it was before the food world really became this juggernaut that it is now, before it held the appeal and cultural resonance that it does now. There was no Food Network, no Saveur magazine, no Eats Con. It wasn't cool, it wasn't hip, it wasn't sexy. And so, growing up, I actually felt a little bit of shame because it wasn't the glorified thing it is now. I was very much encouraged to do something different with my life.

My great-grandfather started Russ and Daughters because he had no choice. He had to survive. His daughters had no choice; they were forced to work at ten or eleven years old and expected to marry men who would come work in the business. My father's generation was supposed to be the American success story–the professionals, the doctors, the lawyers. But when I was growing up, if you had a certain level of education, you didn't necessarily go into food. Now, that has all changed completely. But I struggled with my relationship with Russ and Daughters. For a long time, I didn't think I would take over the business. I took about seven years after college to try out all sorts of things that I thought I would do with my life, and then I began to really take stock of what mattered to me, and this idea of legacy kept coming up. I realized that, especially in this country, where we don't have a lot of history, and we have this very individualistic mentality, Russ and Daughters is a rare jewel.  

"I was very much encouraged to do something different with my life."

OR: Obviously, you come from a very strong line of businesswomen in your family. Have you had any particular challenges trying to prove yourself in this male-dominated industry? 

NRF: Well, I had the added challenge of being "the daughter." When I came in to run the business, some of our vendors and suppliers knew me from when I was a little kid and had a hard time taking me seriously. Also, as a woman, sometimes, when you express strong opinions, people take a step back.

But it's literally in the name, Russ and Daughters, that women are key, and I always felt bolstered by that. So, I don't think I felt the kind of misogyny or discrimination that I might have if I had come up outside of this business. 

OR: How have you balanced expanding Russ and Daughters while maintaining the brand's authenticity? 

NRF: It's all about continuity. Russ and Daughters is 110 years old, and as much as we are evolving, I want people to feel like they are having a continuous experience from 50, 60, 70 years ago. It's figuring out how to maintain the tradition but also move it forward. It's really hard to do both simultaneously, and that's what we're trying to do. That's the magic, and I think people feel that when they come into Russ and Daughters, or when they're eating our food because they're both thrust back in the past–maybe it brings up a memory from their childhood, or maybe it feels like a piece of old New York–but they're also very much in the now. That's been my guiding light. 

When I came back to Russ and Daughters and decided I wanted to do this for real, my cousin Josh and I got together as partners, and we both wanted to do a restaurant. Neither of us had ever worked in a restaurant. Russ and Daughters had only ever been a retail shop, so our idea seemed kind of crazy. But we were grounded by this concept that if we can stay true to what we know and figure out how to translate it into a sit-down restaurant experience, then we've got it. The transition was very organic. It wasn't because I had some five-year plan mapped out. It was really just looking around and feeling like there was a missing piece to the Russ and Daughters experience, and that was a restaurant.  

For the longest time, we tried to keep it under wraps and not tell anyone because of this self-inflicted pressure; "What if we mess up?" Opening a restaurant, especially in New York, is risky. Most of them close within the first year of opening. We had never done this before, so I didn't want that gaze on me. Before we opened to the public, we did a friends and family opening party, and the feedback was essentially, "What took you guys so long?" I took that as the highest compliment. I think opening the restaurant was the thing that shifted people's perception of what Russ and Daughters is or could be. 

Everything that has happened since has been very natural, like opening our own bakery. Ironically, New York is famous for its bagels, but for a long time, most bagels in New York were pretty crappy. We were the torchbearers of the classic New York bagel, classic Bialy, and all the traditional Jewish baked goods. We were seeing this bastardization of the bagel, so it became clear that the only way to guarantee the quality was to start making them ourselves.

Our main bakery and shipping facilities are in The Navy Yard. We started shipping nationwide during the pandemic. We were the sixth business to begin working with Gold Belly when they were just getting started. But in fact, we've been shipping around the country since my grandparents' time. We were fortunate in the sense that, because overnight nationwide shipping was something we'd been doing for so long, when the pandemic hit, we were ready to take it on. Covid was a terrible, crazy time to run a food business, but at the same time, I had so many reminders on the daily from people in lockdown saying, "This is my comfort food." It assured me that things were going to be okay. 

The latest expansion is our Hudson Yards location. It's sort of the culmination of all the different Russ and Daughters locations. It has a long appetizing counter like the OG store; it has seats like the cafe, but it's not a full-service restaurant; it has a bakery right at the entrance, so when you walk in, the first thing you see is our team making fresh bagels, bialys, challah, and babka. We came across this space during Covid. Our online ordering and delivery had become quite a healthy business, and we knew that as soon as we reopened the restaurant, we wouldn't be able to continue our online operation from The Navy Yards, so we were looking for a space in Midtown to make and deliver orders more easily throughout Manhattan. And then the developer of Hudson Yards came calling and wanted us to take this space. At first, I felt this fear, which I think is a healthy fear of not wanting to be the generation to ruin Russ and Daughters. But it actually turned out to be really great. The developers were very honest from the get-go. They had just built this $25 million development, but it didn't feel like New York, and they said to us, "There's nothing more New York than Russ and Daughters." 

"There's nothing more New York than Russ and Daughters." 

OR: What advice would you give the next generation of Russ and Daughters owners?

NRF: My advice would be to find and keep that magic. Think about the elements that have to be preserved at all costs. The quality, of course, is first and foremost. Then look at the essence of Russ and Daughters and figure out how to preserve that continuity.

I also hope for each next generation, whoever that is, to put their own spin on it. To have that mindset of honoring tradition, but also to feel that they can shape things on their own. In 25 years from now, I'll be old and out of touch, so I don't want to be dictating what's interesting; I want that to come from the younger generation that's more in tune and, for them to feel that they can shape things on their own. 

*This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity