Behind the counter at Seakor Polish Delicatessen, Jerry Seakor has short, spiked blond hair and a gold hoop earring. His arms are exposed thanks to a sleeveless T-shirt that shows off his biceps. On his right arm, a tattoo of a large eagle, a symbol of Poland, stares back.

Jerry is a fourth-generation sausage maker. His father, Jozef, and mother, Jadwiga, started Seakor Polish Delicatessen in 1977 in the Outer Richmond neighborhood of San Francisco. They had left Poland a few years earlier to escape communism, Jerry explains: “My pop said if he didn’t leave, he’d be shot in a week or two.” The family settled in Oakland, but chose San Francisco for the store because there were several Eastern European communities already living there.

There is something to see in every nook of this small shop, but just as importantly, there are certain things you will not find: croissants, an espresso machine, cucumber kale juice.

“We want to keep it old school,” says Jerry. Just like the smattering of neighboring Russian markets ( Europa Plus; Royal Market & Bakery; Moscow and Tbilisi), the Seakors have resisted change.

“I don’t want to be like everybody else,” says Jerry.

For him, the desire to maintain tradition is twofold: First, it’s a way of honoring his culture: “Pride in Poland and keeping everything the way I was raised,” he says.

It’s also the Seakors’ way of respecting the regulars who make up the majority of his customer base. Some of these shoppers have known Jerry since he was a child. Stop by on Sunday, and you’ll see them dressed in their church clothes, relaxing at the one small table by the window. They chat in Polish and snack on cheese and krakowska, a salami made primarily from pork and smoked eight hours.

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Jerry was 7 years old when his parents started the deli, and not much has changed. Polish magazines and greeting cards are stacked on the wall just inside the door. An old menu board lists the few lunch options, all under $8: sausage or cold cut sandwiches served on white rolls; stuffed cabbage; and the popular bigos and kielbasa. Bigos, a traditional Polish hunter’s stew, combines cabbage and sauerkraut with boiled beef and smoked ribs. The Seakors’ version comes with a fat link of kielbasa and bread.

Packaged goods cram the deli’s shelves: gooseberry jam, sliced beets, marinated mushrooms, dill pickles and sour cherry tea. These staple items come mainly from Poland, as well as other European countries. Near the back of the shop in a cold case, packages of farmers’ cheese pile on top of sour creams, butters and kurpianka, a Polish smoked cheese flavored with garlic. The Seakors also carry more than 20 kinds of herring, smoked mackerel, salmon and trout. Partially hidden behind the register, a bready poppy-seed cake snaked with a rich, black nutty filling shames those sold at nearby Russian bakeries.

But more than anything else, the deli is a showcase for sausages and preserved meats.

Links of dried pork sausage — kabanosy — hang on hooks on the wall. Jerry likens them to Slim Jim meat sticks.

Inside the deli case, fresh garlic links curl next to long Polish ones, the latter made with 80 percent pork and 20 percent beef, usually chuck. They’re sealed in hog casing, a rarity nowadays, that gives them a snap that artificial casings can’t deliver. White sausages made from pork liver contrasts with dark brown blood sausages full of pork, pork blood and roasted buckwheat.

Beyond the sausages, the case holds smoked ribs, Black Forest ham, and rolled bacon with marjoram and garlic, which Jerry compares to pancetta. Clear containers hold a mottled, viscous mixture of pork schmaltz, pork fat with spices. Several kinds of head cheese in shrink-wrapped plastic show off an assortment of animal parts suspended in gelatin. They look like science experiments to the unfamiliar. Jerry describes one, with pork shank and hot peppers, as “a tiny bit spicy, but nothing to burn your dupa off”; he recommends slicing it on a sandwich and adding onions and vinegar.

It’s not just people of Polish descent that rely on Seakor Polish Delicatessen for a taste of the old world. Most customers are European with roots in the Czech Republic, Germany, former Yugoslavia and Soviet Union.

Nearly 40 years after opening, father and son still work side by side. When Jozef started the company, his only goal was to be successful. For Jerry, it has become something bigger. When asked what this place means to him, his eyes start to well. His voice cracks, and he stares at the ceiling: “It’s my whole life.”

Seakor Polish Delicatessen: 5957 Geary Blvd. (at 24th Avenue), San Francisco. (415) 387-8660

Alissa Merksamer is a Bay Area freelance writer. Email: food@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @glamsnack