Looking Back at 78 Years of Daiter’s Grocery

The cherished uptown Jewish market closed its doors on Thursday, but not before sharing memories.

By John Lorinc

Photo from the Daiter’s Fresh Market Facebook page.

“Ask me anything you want,” Joel said, leaning back and locking his hands behind his head.

“I’m retired now. I’ve got nothing but time.”

In the weeks leading up to the pre-Passover closure, the Daiter brothers spoke to dozens of long-time customers, all of whom bemoaned the loss of one of the staples of the north Bathurst retail scene, and a source for some of Toronto’s best smoked fish and cream cheese. There had been admiring newspaper profiles, TV interviews, and more farewells.

The Daiters welcomed the response and weren’t all that surprised at the outpouring. But despite the protests and well wishes, they were looking forward to a rest. “We loved working here,” allowed Joel, “but we didn’t love how much we were working.” The store would only close on New Year’s Day.

With their parents growing old and their kids growing up, Joel, now 59, and Stephen, now 55, started talking, ever so tentatively, about shutting the store about five years ago, and then made the final decision in 2013. They will, however, continue with a kosher wholesale operation, thus maintaining the Daiter brand and bringing their lox, pickled herring, and other specialties beyond the confines of Bathurst and a handful of Toronto-area supermarkets. Says Joel, “We’re going out on the road.”

Daiter’s planned repositioning coincides with a similar transition at Moe Pancer’s Deli, located a few blocks north of Daiter’s. Founded in 1957, the deli was sold to a Vancouver restaurateur five years ago. In January, the venerable purveyor of smoked meat announced it was planning to close its doors. But Moe’s grandsons, who own the corned beef recipes, told the Toronto Star late last month they spoke to the landlord and intend to reopen the restaurant in the same location.

Daiter’s in the early 50s. Series 65–Metropolitan Toronto Planning Department Library collection.

These transitions follow a familiar script in the history of Toronto’s beloved Jewish eateries and delis. Many, like Daiter’s, began in Kensington and relocated as the community moved north on Bathurst. Some, like Shopsy’s, expanded greatly and then contracted as eating habits changed (what’s left of the chain belongs to the Irish Embassy Hospitality Group).

Caplansky’s, at College and Dundas, is not the descendent of a vintage deli so much as an homage to Switzer’s, which was to Spadina as Schwartz’s is to St. Laurent, in Montreal. (Switzer’s avoided the long march up Bathurst altogether and moved to Mississauga.) Zane Caplansky, whose great-grandfather ran a kosher butcher shop on College, opened his restaurant in 2009 and segued into the food truck business in 2011.

Still others, like the Ladovsky family’s United Baker’s Dairy Restaurant, soldier on, essentially uninterrupted. Founded in 1912, the UB traces its roots back to a store at 153 Agnes Street at Centre, in The Ward (that Dundas Street location now houses a copy shop). After 1920, the business moved to 338 Spadina, and then decamped for the Lawrence Plaza in 1986, where it remains, a fixture of a mall that anchors the local ultra-orthodox neighbourhoods west and south of the intersection.

Harry and Fay Daiter opened their deli at 64 Kensington in 1937. Their son, Ron, and his wife Rene relocated the business to 3519 Bathurst in 1959—just a year before Michael Klein opened Nortown Meat Market, a butcher and fish shop, on Eglinton just west of Bathurst. Seeing the business grow, the Daiters relocated a few years later to a larger shop across from what was then Baycrest’s retirement home, while Klein doubled the size of his shop and began selling deli foods. The Open Window Bakery chain—founded in 1957 by Holocaust survivor Max Feig—had locations near both delis. (Open Windows closed operations in 2011.)

Joel said that Daiter’s third and final location was really the first Jewish supermarket in the city, and took advantage of the fact that Toronto’s predominantly Anglo retail food offerings sorely lacked diversity. Ron Daiter moved to import COR products from the U.S.—certain types of soda, Pringles, Poppycock. The store also became a go-to destination at Yom Kippur, because it specialized in the sorts of foods observant Jews eat when they break the traditional 24-hour fast.

Joel and Stephen started working in the business in their teens, and gradually took on more responsibility for the evolution of the store. With each successive renovation, the brothers added more service elements—a bakery, a café, a serving counter—and subtracted grocery space. “We’ve always been a service business,” said Joel. “We know grandparents, parents, kids, grandkids because we’ve been here for so many years. People will come in for 10 items and spend 45 minutes with us because they want to talk.” Adds Stephen: “It’s very personal.”

Photo from the Daiter’s Fresh Market Facebook page.

That degree of engagement with their customers likely accounts for the Daiters’ long hours, and it all but ensured they had ringside seats to the lives of the people who shopped there, including those who had elderly relatives at Baycrest and would stop in for groceries before or after visits.

Not surprisingly, there’s no shortage of such Daiter lore—everything from local celebrities to customers fainting in the aisles to various shoplifting schemes.

“My Dad for years said, ‘I could write a book,'” Stephen mused.

Okay, I replied, tell me some stories.

“My dad got robbed,” Joel began, “and all they got was steak sauce and milk.”

As the story goes, Ron was trudging across the parking lot out back with a shopping bag that contained the aforementioned items. The cash from the till was strapped to his chest, under a heavy coat. Thinking they’d nabbed a merchant on his way to the bank, the robbers demanded the plastic bag and made Ron crouch on the floor in the back of his car. “Stay here because we’ve got someone on the roof,” one shouted before fleeing. They realized their mistake, but not before a witness approached. “My mum,” Joel added, “wasn’t too upset she didn’t get the milk.”

While Nortown founder Michael Klein’s children and grandchildren have gone into the business, the Daiter brothers’ offspring—five in all—expressed no interest. “Thank God!” said Joel. “They said, ‘We know the hours you put in.’”

After a bit of a rest, they’ll launch the wholesale division later in the year. “Even though we’re gone,” explained Joel, “we’re not gone.”

After the interview, he got up and walked me to the back door, which had been locked since early afternoon.

Outside, a woman standing next to a large sedan waved him over.

“We’re not open,” Joel said evenly.

She seemed undaunted by this piece of information. “You have smoked salmon for me,” the woman replied.

“Okay, let me find out,” Joel said, and with that, he turned and went back inside, in search of the fish. Even on that last day, Daiter’s was a service business.

CORRECTION: 2:18 PM This article originally said that Yitz’s did not survive an ownership change in 2010. This is not the case, and the Eglinton West deli is still in business. We regret the error.