Harold “Groucho” Miller moved to Columbia, South Carolina in 1941 after his childhood in a Philadelphia orphanage. He came to town with a handful of original recipes for potato salad, coleslaw, and dressings for both salads and sandwiches. He set out to work opening his first restaurant based on these recipes. To this day, we honor and repeat his founding philosophy: “Quality is the most important ingredient in a sandwich.” Harold's son, Ivan Miller, recalled in a 1986 interview with the Columbia Record how “...when Pop first opened this store, Columbia was a small town, and everything had a label. Here he [Harold] was this really crazy kind of guy. Always joking, always had a big cigar and a mustache… He looked like Groucho Marx, he talked like Groucho Marx, and to Columbia, he was Groucho Marx. So that is how the name came about.” Ivan later went on to be the second-generation proprietor of Groucho's Deli.
Groucho's Deli abides by the same tradition with each generation: we serve only the highest quality products and ingredients. In turn, Groucho's® Deli sits at legendary status for 80+ years of excellence.
