Lili Markowitz, the matriarch of Factor’s Famous Deli, died Sept. 26. She was 94.
Her death was announced on the Facebook page of the popular Pico Boulevard restaurant: “Today we lost the Queen of our family,” the post stated, adding she died surrounded by her family.
Born Lili Katz on Feb. 11, 1926, she met Herman Markowitz at the end of World War II in a Romanian displaced persons camp. They immigrated to the United States in 1947, originally settling in Cleveland before moving to Los Angeles in 1963.
Herman “thought there was more opportunity in California for his five children,” their daughter Suzee told the Journal in 2018, during Factor’s 70th anniversary.
Herman, who had run a restaurant in Prague before the war, started working at Nate ’n Al’s in Beverly Hills. He bought Factor’s from the original owners, Abe and Esther Factor, in 1969, and under the Markowitzes’ management the restaurant became a regular stop for residents of its West Los Angeles neighborhood and movie stars who worked at the nearby 20th Century Fox lot.
Markowitz’s regular presence was a big part of Factor’s appeal. “She lit up the room and was always so kind and wonderful to us all,” Nicole Leibovitz Lange wrote on the deli’s Facebook page. Markowitz remained active in the business, arriving at the restaurant daily at 2 p.m. for lunch. “She’s like our salt-control person. She’ll yell at the chef if she tastes too much salt in the soup,” her daughter Debbie Ullman told Food and Wine magazine in 2018.
Markowitz is survived by her five children, Marvin, Suzee, Fred, Debbie and Edie, seven grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
On Sept. 27, the hearse carrying Markowitz’s body drove past Factor’s where, according to KCBS-TV, dozens of customers stood outside the delicatessen to pay their respects.
