Popular Cardiff delicatessen and coffee house shares fascinating Jewish history

Amelia Jones

The owner of a popular delicatessen and café in Cardiff has featured in a video on social media, sharing his fascinating family history for Jewish Culture month.

In the video, Steven Salamon, owner of Wally’s Delicatessen, shares the story of his family’s escape from Austria, his father’s role in establishing the business, and its enduring place in Cardiff’s cultural landscape.

The video was shared as part of Jewish Culture Month, which celebrates Jewish history, heritage and contributions to communities across Wales. It formed part of a series that is taking a tour around Jewish businesses in Cardiff.

The story of Wally’s Delicatessen dates back to the aftermath of the Second World War. Its founder, Ignatz Salamon, fled persecution in Poland and Austria before arriving in Britain in 1939. After rebuilding his life in Cardiff, he opened a delicatessen in Bridge Street in 1947, laying the foundations for what would become one of the city’s most recognisable independent businesses.

Speaking in the video, Steven Salamon reflected on his family’s journey to Wales and the legacy left by his father and grandfather. He said: “I’m the owner of Wally’s Delicatessen, and I’m a second-generation Holocaust survivor. It’s a long story, but essentially my grandparents had their business confiscated after the Anschluss, and they had to find a means of getting out.

“My grandfather came to the UK as part of the Kitchener Camp scheme, and my grandmother came to the UK as a domestic servant. Cardiff was a hotspot of different nationalities. We’re a dock city.

“There was Greeks and Irish and Somalis, and then there was an influx of Jews, Italians and Spanish and other Eastern Europeans. And we were trying to provide all these guys with a taste of their home culture, a feeling of belonging when they were living thousands of miles from home. You know, I’d like to think my father would be very proud.

“He didn’t really have the ambition to expand the business from its early beginnings. He was fortunate to have moved to the Arcade, which we’re in now, in 1981.

“Following his passing, I then managed to expand the business, opened a cafe, several other businesses, I think he’d be proud, but I think I was slightly mad.

“We still dress in the original overalls that we wore 70 years ago. We still sell a lot of the same products we sold 70 years ago. We have second and third and fourth generation customers.

“We are like another family member for many of our customer families. I recommend the Roebuck and Dettai, open sandwich, named after the village where my father was born.”

Wally’s has become one of the longest-standing traders in Cardiff’s Victorian arcades, which are widely regarded as a defining feature of the city centre and home to a number of independent businesses.

Over the decades, the delicatessen has built a reputation for sourcing specialist foods and ingredients from around the world, attracting customers from far beyond the Welsh capital.

The video was met with a positive response from viewers, with one commenter saying: “We used to go to Wally’s when I was little. Dad bought all our muesli there as it wasn’t such a common food in the early 80s, and theirs was made with ‘proper’ ingredients. I used to love the smell!”

Another added: “I’ve been coming to Wally’s since 1985, when I was a child, when we moved from Germany to Cardiff and it became a member of our family almost immediately, selling all the gorgeous things we missed and stuff from other places that we’d never seen. The smell itself was like coming home. So glad it still exists and thrives and has the same feel.”

You can watch the full video here.