Rubin Caslow, who died Sunday at 86, built his father-in-law’s Greenpoint factory into the largest fish smoker in the nation, with customers including such temples to lox as Zabar’s, Barney Greengrass, and Russ & Daughters.

Caslow — known to friends and family as Ruby — was chairman of Acme Smoked Fish Corp., which annually brines, smokes, slices, and distributes more than 7 million pounds of salmon, whitefish, and herring nationwide. A map of its distribution network might look very much like a map of American Jewry, Caslow’s son and the vice president of the company, Robert Caslow, said.

The company was begun in 1954 by Caslow’s father-in-law, Harry Brownstein, who worked as a horse-powered wagon jobber, delivering wholesale fish to stores from the turn of the 20th century. Brownstein started several short-lived fish companies in the 1930s and 1940s, then founded Acme. There were many Brooklyn-based competitors in the early years, and company lore has it that Brownstein named his firm Acme to make it the first fish smoker in the phone book.

According to Robert Caslow, the business foundered for several years, barely covering the bills, until it began to grow in the 1970s as elaborate breakfasts became more popular. Acme now operates out of an 80,000-square-foot facility that includes tanks for brining and a giant forced-air smoker. Each of the company’s several dozen products is certified kosher with the exception of sturgeon, a fish whose kashruth is a matter of long-standing rabbinic dispute. A popular weekly sale persists at the Gem Street Acme factory, “Fish Friday,” when the company offers its products to the general public at wholesale prices.

Rubin Caslow, the son of Russian immigrants, grew up in Bedford-Stuyvesant and attended Samuel J. Tilden High School. After marrying the boss’s daughter — Charlotte, who survives him — he started out as a deliveryman at Acme. He soon became a manager. Brownstein died in the mid-1960s.

Under Caslow’s leadership — the privately held company is uncertain exactly when he assumed the title of chairman — Acme diversified its product line and began utilizing farmed fish from as far away as Chile and Norway for some of its lox. In 2000, the company added the Blue Hill Bay Smoked Seafood brand.

Caslow worked nights, heading off to the factory after dinner to fill wholesale delivery orders. He kept working right up to the end.

“Up until a couple of years ago, it wasn’t uncommon for me to go there at 1 or 2 in the morning and see Ruby lugging heavy boxes of fish,” an owner of the Lower East Side fixture Russ & Daughters, Mark Russ Federman, said. “He knew every piece of fish in his smokehouse.”
Another owner of Russ & Daughters, Niki Russ Federman, said her family’s 93-year-old appetizer shop has been purchasing fish from Acme for decades. “We know they’re looking out for the best quality,” she said. “They’re like family to us.”

Several years ago, Caslow turned over leadership of the firm to his sons, Robert and Eric, who is president. A fourth generation from both sides of the family, Brownsteins and Caslows, works for the company today.

Despite more than a half-century spent sleepless with the fishes, Rubin Caslow never lost his taste for them. “If he were alive, he’d be eating smoked fish with us right now at the shiva,” Robert Caslow said.

Rubin Caslow
Born April 20, 1920, in Brooklyn; died April 8 at his home in Roslyn, Long Island; survived by his wife of 65 years, Charlotte, his sons, Eric and Robert, seven grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.