Ethnic markets: Bosnian owners bring taste of home to Alpine Deli

The Hatkics fled from Bosnia to Germany in 1992, the year the Bosnian War began, and moved to Spokane in 1998.

Three years ago, the family purchased the Alpine Deli from Werner Gaubinger. They transformed Gaubinger’s German deli, butcher shop, and liquor store into a deli and market stocked full of Bosnian and German cuisine.

Adnan Hatkic manages the deli’s finances and his mother, Esma, is the cook and baker.

The market sells meats, cheeses, candies, gummies, cookies, wafers, jams, jellies, honey, coffee, pickles, cabbage, sauerkraut and more.

The deli offers “A little bit of everything, not just chocolates and candies,” said Adnan.

Every week, Adnan and Esma build a new menu of lunch specials, which are posted on Alpine Deli’s Facebook page.

Bosnian specials include burek, a pastry filled with meat; sarma, stuffed cabbage leaves; and ćevapi or ćevapcici, a meat dish often paired with lepine.

The Alpine Deli buys its lepine, a Bosnian flatbread, from the Alpine Bakery. The similarity in the names of these two stores is just a coincidence, said Nicole Burgi, who owns the bakery with her husband Carl.

German specials include rouladen, beef rolls; schnitzel, a thin fried meat; and sauerbraten, a German pot roast.

While the Hatkics lived in Mauer, Germany, Esma worked at the Gasthaus zur Pfalz restaurant.

Of all the pastries Esma bakes, she said her favorite is a German cake called kinder bueno. She provided the recipe.

Adnan said his favorite candies are the Bosnian KiKis and any flavor of the German Ritter chocolates.

The cuisine sold in the market is stocked with about 25 percent of the market from Bosnia, 70 percent from Germany, and 5 percent from other European countries.

The Alpine Deli sources its cheeses from Europe, its bread from Tacoma and Vancouver, and its meats from the United States. Adnan said the meats are made in the U.S. using “old country recipes.”

The Alpine Deli’s customer base, said Adnan, is largely German, Bosnian, and English.

The fallout of the Bosnian War sparked genocide in 1995. Adnan said that many Bosnians started leaving their country “somewhere in the mid ’90s.” He said there are about 800 Bosnians currently living in Spokane.