Deli noir

EVAN WILLIAMS / FLORIDA WEEKLY Erich Mann, Downtown Market & Deli Erich Mann's drawing of the street outside his new deli in downtown Fort Myers suggests a noir art sensibility. The image is rendered in stark, black lines from a voyeuristic viewpoint, peeking out from behind the deli's sidewalk sign: an empty street presumably baked by the sun, a row of storefronts, palm fronds against a blank sky.

Mr. Mann, 45, opened Downtown Market & Deli June 4 in a small space on Hendry Street. Some of the sandwiches have names that play on noir themes. They include the "Misdemeanor," featuring lemon-pepper chicken breast; "The Mob Boss," topped with plenty of Italian meat and fresh basil leaves; and the "3rd Degree Felony," with roast beef, turkey and ham. All are made with Boar's Head-brand meats.

Maybe some of Mr. Mann's sensibilities came from his father, who was a police officer in Ohio where he grew up. Some of Las Vegas' dark glitz and glamour might have rubbed off on his imagination too. He spent four years there beginning in 2000, working as a bartender and sommelier at the Havana Cigar Company on Paradise Road, near the strip. Movie and television stars sometimes appeared and bought cigars there. One time, Mr. Mann said he went up to a table in the smoky darkness of the bar and said "'Sir, you look so familiar. Are you an attorney?' He said, 'no, but I play one on TV.'"

Mr. Mann also ran a small deli there, in the back room.

He has been a bartender since his early 20s, a job that afforded him the freedom to travel. He was good at bartending and developed the skills to flip bottles and entertain customers.

"You keep bartending," he said. "Years pass and you're still doing it. It's freedom. I'd never been married and had kids so I knew that the world was my oyster. I could go where I wanted when I wanted."

Being a bartender was also a compromise in some ways.

"I'm an artist by life's choice," Mr. Mann said. "But it's tough making a living that way. You have to find things to do in the meantime."

He graduated from Auburn University with a degree in fine arts, drawing inspiration from artists such as French-sculptor Auguste Rodin and Vincent Van Gogh. "Who doesn't like Vincent?" Mr. Mann said. And after he said that, a second look at the picture he drew of the street outside his deli looks Van Gogh-inspired. Maybe sometimes an art critic says more about themselves than the art.

Before Las Vegas, Mr. Mann lived in Dayton, Ohio, where he learned to play golf. "I became completely consumed by it, passionate," he said. He and a friend decided they'd move to Las Vegas because of the world-class golfing and other attractions. They packed a U-haul truck for a memorable road trip.

"We camped at the Grand Canyon," he said. "It was beautiful. I'd never been there."

Seeing the landmark inspired him. He has since considered making a life-size bronze sculpture of what a man looks like when he peers into the canyon for the first time, his body and face frozen in awe, surprise, wonder.

"When you hear the coyotes howling and it echoes off those canyon walls it's something. It's really something," he said. "And every minute the light inside that canyon changes."

Las Vegas was inspiring to him in a completely different way; and in his view, the city was often unsavory.

"It's the wild west, it really is," he said. "It's dangerous. Anything goes. It's nonstop. There's violence, there's filth. There are also good people out there."

In 2004, tired of the nonstop lifestyle in Vegas, he moved to Clearwater Beach and met Tammie Smith, his girlfriend and business partner. They decided to move to Fort Myers and run the deli together because Ms. Smith grew up here and Mr. Mann decided he wanted to put down roots.

"We could grow old doing this," he said.