Expanded Cookbook Contributor Bios

Get to know the folks who contributed to the production of our first-ever cookbook, “Smoke on the Waterfront: The Northern Waters Smokehaus Cookbook” — All current or alumnus Smokehausers!

Mary K. Tennis

Mary K. Tennis is a Duluth writer, food lover, and Smokehaus expert and alumnus. She got her start in at least two of these categories in 2001, when she wandered into the deli and got a part-time job. During her time as general manager of Northern Waters Smokehaus, she greenlit the process of writing a definitive Smokehaus cookbook, and in addition to contributions throughout the body of the text and extensive recipe testing, she also crafted the beautiful introductions at the beginning of each chapter. Mary now (as of publication) serves as Director of the St. Louis County Depot & Extension Services.

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Net Netzel

Ned Netzel writes for the blog and social media platforms of the Northern Waters Smokehaus. He creates experimental music under the moniker seym0ur glass. Ned began the cookbook writing process by digging through the Northern Waters Smokehaus and Northern Waters Restaurant kitchen binders, computer hard drives, email exchanges, and the mind of Eric Goerdt to compile, edit, and reduce recipes to home-chef volumes. Beyond his written contributions throughout the book, Ned poured his efforts into keeping the writing team on-task during occasionally long and delirious writing/testing sessions, and ensuring the clarity and accuracy of the text.

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Nic Peloquin

Nic Peloquin has been cooking professionally since age fifteen for a range of food businesses, from fast to fine. He has cultivated a passion for preparing locally foraged, hunted, and fished ingredients with a scientific eye. He left food service for a brief career in stand-up comedy and quickly returned to the kitchen. Nic’s expertise in the kitchen and rigorous knowledge of the scientific underpinnings of food preparation were invaluable to the production of the cookbook, and his quips, impressions, and tangents kept the writing team in good spirits.

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Eric Goerdt is the owner and founder of Northern Waters Smokehaus. Without Eric’s unique vision and excellence as both artisan and business owner, this cookbook would not exist. Eric wrote a ‘Welcome’ to the book, provided his wisdom and guidance throughout the process, and is responsible for the majority of the recipes found within.

Eric Goerdt

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Greg Conley

Greg Conley is the human resources coordinator at Northern Waters Smokehaus. Before his time at NWS, he served as general manager of Northern Waters Restaurant. Greg’s voice is found throughout the book in a handful of in-depth essays on topics ranging from sourdough bread to barbecue smoking. During sessions when he was neither at band practice, nor actively writing or testing recipes (such as kippering Atlantic salmon on a modified Weber grill in the middle of a blizzard, just to prove it can be done), he nourished the rest of the writing team with exquisite meals.

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Jacob Swanson is a visual artist, musician, and sandwich enthusiast from northern Wisconsin. He spent a handful of years on the Smokehaus’s deli front lines, and behind the scenes contributing to social media and marketing before continuing on to other adventures. Jacob’s eye for detail and composition is evident in his role behind the camera for many of the food shots found throughout the book.

Jacob Swanson

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Flo

Flo is a Salvadoran multidisciplinary artist in Portland, Oregon, now tackling the wild, hilarious world of Montessori early education. Their artistic fingerprint is found throughout Northern Waters Smokehaus in the shape of hand-drawn fonts, illustrations, stickers, murals, menus, and more. You’ll find Flo’s illustrations on the end sheets of the book (those things that affix the covers of the book to the rest of the pages), and their eye for food design is present in many of the photographs found throughout.

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Stephen Pestalozzi

Stephen Pestalozzi is a Minnesota artist who uses landscape as a primary source of inspiration to explore the intricacies of the modern world. Stephen’s photographic work from his tenure at the Smokehaus is present throughout in the book, as well as number of environmental and landscape shots of Duluth and Northern Minnesota from his independent work as a visual artist.

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Zac Bentz

Zac Bentz is a graphic designer, auditory atmospherist, and dog-friend who has lived in and around Duluth his entire life. Zac designed and created the initial cookbook pitch chapter presented to the publisher, worked closely with the press’s design team to bring our vision to life, served as democratically elected project manager, and filled in photographic blanks on the back end of the project.

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Order your copy of “Smoke on the Waterfront: The Northern Waters Smokehaus Cookbook” through our online store!

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Welcome to Northern Waters Smokehaus (2023 New Location Edition)

If you’ve visited our new location on the lower level of the Dewitt-Seitz Marketplace, you may have noticed a big change to our business: We’ve separated our deli counter from our sandwich-making operation! This is, ultimately, a good change, but it does merit some explanation.

Wherever on the Smokehaus regular-to-future first-time customer spectrum you land, we hope this helps guide you through your next Northern Waters Smokehaus experience. Topics covered will include Entering the Space, our new Divided Service model, How to Order and more!

Plenty of indoor browsing and dining space. More seating than ever!

Entering the Space

Now that we are located in the basement of DeWitt-Seitz, there are three different ways you can enter Northern Waters: the Front Door, the Central Stairs from the main floor of DeWitt-Seitz, and the Elevator.

• The Front Door (see above) is accessible through our patio space at the corner of Buchanan Street and South Lake Avenue and down a short flight of stairs. It opens directly into the sandwich line, which can be circumnavigated to head to the deli counter.

• The Central Stairs are located near the center of the building on the first floor. The hallways of all the public doors of the building converge at this staircase, which you’ll head down to enter our space. The door at the bottom of the stairs will be propped open during business hours, and customers accessing our store via the elevator will also enter through this threshold.

• The Elevator opens up to an unmistakable sign, and an arrow-marked hallway that leads you past multiple NWS service doors. Since this hallway doubles as a service lane for our staff, it’s sort of like a Smokehaus safari: You may see our staff pushing carts loaded with bins of smoked fish or prepared sandwich meats down the hallway as you pass, in order the access to our production facility, the staff access to our deli counter, the prep room, and the staff access to our kitchen before entering at the same door as the Central Stairs.

Divided Service

For the majority of our deli’s 25 years of service, one of the most common customer frustrations has been the following: Why, if they’re just trying to order a chunk of Traditional Smoked Atlantic Salmon, must they wait behind a line of people ordering sandwiches?

For the longest time, it was simply the best we could manage, given our set up. During the pandemic, when we closed our doors to the public, advanced pickup orders mitigated the issue somewhat, but in-person orders at “the window” faced the same problems as before, with the added hang-up of our “grocery” service suffering. Let’s face it, part of the fun of going to a deli is pointing out your ideal chunk of fish, or having a real conversation about the meats you want sliced, and with what cheese, etc. you should pair them.

Furthermore, we have an extensive menu of sandwiches, salads, and an equally diverse selection of drinks hard and soft. Navigating that menu deserves its own dedicated experience and staff to assist you. For reasons, we’ll cover in this section, we have largely eliminated advanced ordering at our deli counter, so the downtime while you wait for your sandwich order is a great time to check out our deli counter.

Introducing: the Sandwich Counter and the Deli Counter.

• The Sandwich Counter line forms just inside from our Buchanan St entrance, and weaves through a guided path past our sandwich and beverage menus. Once you arrive at the register, you’ll be able to order sandwiches, salads, sides, and beverages for here or to go. Notably, transactions at our Sandwich Counter will not include grocery orders. You’ll order smoked fish, salumi, sliced meats, and grab-and-go items at the Deli Counter. Online orders for Sandwich Counter items can still be made through our website. For now, we are not accepting orders over the phone. Customers with mobility issues will be given priority at our Sandwich Counter, as the line is narrow and wind-y — please work with our staff if you need accommodations.
  One other point of interest is how you receive your order. To-go and pickup orders are bagged and available for pickup at a small counter labeled ‘Pickup,’ while for-here orders will be given a number, which we’ll use to run food directly to your table.

• The Deli Counter is now a classic deli counter. Here, you’ll get face-to-face interaction with our staff, and expert advice as you order smoked fish and meats, salumi, cheese, and more. You’ll recognize it by the white subway tile backsplash, the iconic neon sign, and (of course) the row of charcuterie-stuffed deli cases. The flow of things is a little bit looser over on this side (for now! In busier times, we may incorporate a bit more structure to the process) and we have shopping baskets on hand for you to use while perusing our grab-and-go case, cheese case, merchandise area (where you’ll find clothing, posters, our cookbook, and more), and various meat and fish cases. Once you’ve gathered your various sundries, you’ll head to the register for checkout. Notably unavailable at this counter would be a.) items ordered at the Sandwich Counter, and b.) advanced online orders.

Our purpose in separating these core elements of our business basically boils down to: More streamlined service improves customer experience, and decreases wait times. A sandwich order needn’t wait for its deli counter items to go out, and vice-versa. While the kitchen prepares your food, you’re free to check out our deli counter or lounge in our seating space

One more note on this subject: A bit of advice. If you’d like to optimize your use of time when ordering from both sides of the business, generally, you’ll want to begin by ordering prepared items from the kitchen. The deli counter is, with certain exceptions, typically quicker moving.

How to Order

In this section we’ll briefly cover again the available items, and how you can place orders, at each counter.

• Sandwich Counter

• Sandwiches, salads, sides, beverages

• Advanced order online, or wait in line to place an order in-person

• No phone orders at this time. Please help us keep our phone lines open for order adjustments, corrections, and questions.

• Deli Counter

• Smoked fish and meats, salumi, cheese, grab-and-go items, merchandise (including clothing, posters, and our cookbook)

• Order in-person from the product experts staffing our deli counter; larger and more-involved advanced orders can be arranged via email ( sales@nwsmokehaus.com )

• No phone orders at this time. Exceptions, such as seasonal pre-order specials, will be noted on our website and in our newsletter.

By separating our Deli Counter from our Sandwich Counter, by limiting what types of orders we accept, and by allowing customers spending their time and money in our new space more streamlined options for payment, we hope to improve your overall experience in our new location. We’re writing this guide during the (relatively) slow season for our deli, where workflow and ticket time issues may be less apparent, but once those Summer sandwich lines start kicking in, we hope our division and refocusing of service ensures the shortest possible wait times, maximum good times, and excellent customer service.

Try as we may, it is nigh impossible to create a concise, yet comprehensive, guide for our customer experience that covers all possible questions; and as we grow into our new space, potentially adding new services, extending hours, and more, things are bound to change. For inquiries related to topics not covered in this guide, ask our friendly and knowledgeable staff, or shoot us an email or direct message on the social media accounts. We do our best to respond during the M-F work week.

An Abridged History of Smokehaus Mail-Order

Northern Waters has been shipping since the beginning, when Eric was operating out of the Spirit Business Center in Superior, WI.

The University of Minnesota Duluth was our first mail order customer, and with the help of a shipping service located in the same business center, we shipped hundreds of boxes to the university’s alumni network around the country (and we still do—UMD remains one of our largest and most loyal customers. We love you forever!) and from there, mail orders snowballed, as recipients requested similar shipments for their loved ones.

“Vintage” mail order ephemera

What began as simple shipments of smoked fish, grew alongside our growing menu of smoked meats and sundries, and followed us along to our current location in Canal Park.

The next (huge) boost in our mail order sales arrived alongside the debut of our spot on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, which brought national (and international!) attention to our humble, still very sparsely-staffed, deli. Quickly, it seemed like everyone wanted a taste of NWS, and better yet, those who couldn’t make the trek to Duluth could have it shipped right to their front door. Our nationwide shipping, ever a mainstay of the business, grew such that sales during the month of December rivaled entire Summer tourist seasons! (Furthermore, re-runs of our Triple-D appearance often yield a boost in mail order sales of Salamini and Smoked Whitefish, to the point that we factor the re-airings into our production schedule.)

Mail Order Elves hard at work mid-pandemic

Andy (former M.O. director, current Wholesale Coordinator), Hannah (former M.O. elf, current Catering Director), and a bunch of boxes.

And since then, mail order has never really slowed down. Individual buyers and corporate customers both local and national have made our exquisite hausmade products a regular part of their personal shopping and gift-giving toolkit.

Meanwhile, our Mail Order department has been directed by a succession of talented teams and individuals, each using their particular skillsets and vision to grow, organize, re-organize, and reinvent the department into its current form; to lead and inspire the holiday “Mail Order Elves” to seasonal success packaging thousands of boxes over the course of a small handful of weeks; and to provide our customers with the best, most authentic service possible. It’s a tall order, and we’re grateful to those who have been a part of this journey, at every stage.

All the places we ship!

As a family-owned, locally oriented small business, we’ve done our best to remain humble, uphold our values and integrity, and continue to produce (and ship) renowned smoked fish and meats of the highest quality! Special thanks to Michael and Ollie, who are guiding Mail Order and Corporate Orders respectively during our deli’s big move into the basement of the DeWitt-Seitz Marketplace. Next week we’ll be sharing final updates to our nationwide shipping and announcing an end-of-September Last Hurrah mail order sale (name tbd).

Michael (current M.O. director) vacuum packing a staggeringly small volume of smoked fish.

We're Moving!

Northern Waters Smokehaus is ecstatic to announce that we will be moving to a (slightly) new location this year. After over 20 years in a tiny corner of the DeWitt Seitz building, we are spreading our wings and moving into the location formerly occupied by the Amazing Grace Café. 

We are looking forward to once again sharing food and food lore face-to-face with the community. We will continue to provide the fast service you’ve come to expect since our pandemic-era remodel, while bringing our deli back to the forefront. Expect to see all of our products lovingly and tantalizingly displayed for considered perusal (and sampling): smoked fish, smoked meats, salumi, cheeses, spreads, snack sticks, and of course, sandwiches, all with much needed indoor seating, and a lovely outdoor patio. We will strive to honor and nourish an inclusive and creative community spirit in our new location.

2023 is our 25th anniversary. Along with this move and expansion, we are planning events to celebrate a quarter-century of business, with even more surprises planned for later this year.

Here’s to the next 25 years!

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-xoxo Northern Waters Smokehaus-