It’s taken nearly 40 years for the owners of Brent’s Delicatessen and Restaurant to decide that it’s time for a second helping of the family fare that made the first restaurant an institution in Northridge. That day will finally arrive this summer when a second location of the family-owned Brent’s will open in the Hyatt Westlake center in Westlake Village. “I’ve always kind of wanted a second store, but then I got kind of old,” joked Ron Peskin, who, with his wife, bought the Northridge store in 1967 for $1,800. “And now I have my son-in-law, who is ambitious, and my daughter who would like to see him be successful, and my son. And everybody kept asking us, when are you going to open in Westlake?” The new restaurant will have the same extensive menu and food that has patrons lining up for a typical 15-minute lunch-wait at the Northridge location, but the space, designed by Agoura Hills-based Design Development Co., which also designed Roy’s and Fleming’s in Woodland Hills among other restaurants, will be considerably larger with seating for 300 versus the 180-seat capacity in Northridge. It will also have a full bar, something that is not available in Northridge. The owners chose the Westlake site after about a three-year search. “The demographics we’re looking for is a good, corporate environment with a lot of offices,” said Marc Hernandez, Peskin’s son-in-law and the impetus behind the decision to expand. “That’s what brings in the lunchtime, delivery and catering business. And the Jewish population has moved West and that’s really part of it.” The Westlake location, which also includes an outdoor patio, will have a larger deli and bakery counter and an open cook’s area bordered by a counter with seating. “We felt that the family-quality and the Jewish deli feeling was very important,” said Ron Lieberman, the senior member of Design Development’s father-son team. “We didn’t want to overplay that with design and tricks, so we created what we thought would be a wonderful neighborhood deli and restaurant.” Focus on food The counter area, with its fresh deli meats and baked goods, begins at the entrance to the new restaurant and wraps across to the cook’s area, giving that section of the restaurant the feel of a market. “Walking into the entrance, it’s all about the food,” said Lieberman. “The deli then turns and becomes an open grill kitchen, so the exhibition kitchen is all part of the process.” Ron and Patricia Peskin bought Brent’s when it was about two years old, taking over a considerable amount of debt from the former owner. Oddly enough, the restaurant’s name was also that of their son, who was just a child at the time. The couple built the Northridge location from its original size, with seating for about 60, to its current stature, winning “best deli” accolades in the Zagat Survey for many years running and developing a clientele that gradually expanded beyond the local area. Catering now accounts for about 30 percent of Brent’s sales and delivery accounts for another 35 percent, and many of its customers are now located in the Conejo Valley. Hernandez worked at Brent’s as a student, often side by side with the Peskin’s youngest child, Carie, but the two didn’t marry until years later after Hernandez had graduated from Cornell University School of Hotel Administration in New York and tried his hand at a few corporate restaurant jobs before returning to Brent’s. New techniques Earlier, even as Brent’s was seeing its business surge, there were not enough family hands to handle a second location. That changed with Hernandez, who is bringing some of the professional management techniques he learned at Cornell to the family-owned restaurant. “Our store was a hands-on kind of restaurant,” said Peskin. “Now my son-in-law comes from another world and he’s kind of changed the flow of the business. I didn’t used to use computers and of course this world runs on computers today. I used to keep everything in my head.” The restaurant in Northridge now employs about 140 workers. Ron Peskin still works the restaurant floor on most days and wife Patricia handles much of the bookkeeping. Brent Peskin handles all of the restaurant’s catering and Carie, Hernandez’s wife, manages the front of the restaurant, although she has scaled back her hours in recent years. “It’s a fine line,” said Hernandez, “because we’re a big company we’ll do over $10 million in Northridge. Systems can be good if they’re for the idea of consistency, but it’s being able to still maintain that family-owned environment and navigate that fine line as a corporation.”