NYC deli on pace to bring in $1.2 million in its first year

Friday, July 28, 2023

CNBC Make It Life helps you lead a healthier, richer and more fulfilling lifestyle.
By Aditi Shrikant

31-year-old opened deli with his family — it's on pace to bring in over $1 million its first year

At Datz Deli in Queens, New York, customers line up for hours to get a taste of owner Joshua Dat's offerings. The 31-year-old opened the store in December 2022 with the idea to spice up quintessential New York staples like a Jamaican beef patty with flavors from his dad's native Guyana.

"I wanted to be different," says Dat. "I wanted to give people something new to try."

The deli has developed a cult following on social media, boasting more than 50,000 followers on Instagram and becoming the center of countless TikToks.

The popularity has turned the family business — Dat employs his parents, siblings, uncle, nephew and a few close friends — into a financial success. Datz Deli brought in a combined $300,000 in May and June, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It, and is projected to bring in $1.2 million in 2023.

"I'm going to have to pay around $355,000 in taxes if that is the case," Dat says. "You know what they say: more money, more problems."

VIDEO: How this deli sandwich brings in $165K a month

Visitors to the Queens, New York establishment queue up for the DatMacPatty, a Caribbean-style beef patty stuffed with homemade macaroni and cheese. The deli brought in $165,000 in May 2023.

How to talk to people: 3 annoying phrases to cut from your vocabulary

Kathy and Ross Petras are a brother-sister duo who have written a slew of books about how to communicate more effectively. "These days, there are some mind-numbingly overused buzzwords and clichés that make everyone want to scream," they wrote for CNBC Make It.

The two of them have interviewed managers, recruiters and employees about the words and phrases they think should be retired — or at least go on a long vacation.

Here are three:

Bandwidth. A lot of people use "bandwidth" to refer to human capacities to take on a task — and it has become a buzzword that your business partners don't have the bandwidth to keep hearing.
"I did a thing." You're scrolling through Instagram and you see a friend's post saying that she "did a thing," alongside a picture of a holiday decoration. Can't she just say, "I made this"?
Pivot. In business, pivoting means shifting direction in a major way. But the word has lost its meaning, since everyone is now "pivoting" seemingly all the time. Let's put this one on the shelf unless we're announcing a new global strategy.

The natural way to get more 'beauty' nutrients

From 2011 to 2020, the percentage of Americans who reported taking a hair, skin and nail vitamin like biotin or collagen in the past month rose from 2.5% to 4.9%.

Biotin is a vitamin that can aid in hair growth, and collagen is a supplement that can combat the effects aging has on skin.

But experts warn about side effects and dangers. Skin, hair and nail supplements often contain much more biotin than the human body needs, a research paper published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology has found.

The daily recommended dose of biotin for adults is 0.03 milligram. In some cases, supplements had 650 times that amount, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

High levels of biotin to that degree can potentially lead to false diagnoses of hyperthyroidism and affect doctors' abilities to detect heart attacks in patients. Collagen supplements present some risk, too, as they sometimes contain toxic heavy metals like lead and mercury.

If you want to increase your consumption of biotin and collagen, experts suggest creating a diet that is rich in these nutrients instead.

Foods with biotin include: