Mindy Smith strides into Daiter’s Fresh Market on a recent January morning and glares at the store’s owners, who are sitting, as they always do, on a bench near the entrance.
“I’m mad at you!” she says. She puts her hands on her hips. “Who else is going to drizzle extra chocolate on my son’s Buffalo?”
A good question.
And one of the many queries long-time customers are demanding of Stephen and Joel Daiter since they announced they plan to close their store on Bathurst St. north of Lawrence Ave. on April 2.
Other shoppers may be less concerned about Buffalo, rolled dough with filling that’s similar to the well-known sweet yeast Babka cake, than the other traditional Jewish staples — gefilte fish, prepared chicken soup, hand-sliced lox, kreplach, five types of herring and blintzes.
People swear by their floppyish version of the Jewish crêpe, made out of thin dough.
But what’s really on everyone’s mind — and in their hearts — is losing this local icon; one of the first — and longest standing — Jewish creameries and appetizer stores in the city.
Daiter’s has been around — in some capacity — since the early 1930s.
And not just as a place with good food, but a hub; where neighbours congregate, old folks schmooze and everyone knows your name — and your mother’s name, your father’s medical history and where your kids go to school.
“I’ve always said we’re like Cheers,” says Stephen.
“We’re not just a retail store,” adds Joel, finishing his brother’s thought. “We’re a community.”
It began more than 80 years ago when Harry Daiter, a Russian immigrant with a degree in agriculture from Western University (then the University of Western Ontario) started making cream cheese and cottage cheese a couple of times a week at a local dairy.
He and wife Fay would peddle it door-to-door from a baby carriage. When city health inspectors politely asked them to stop, they opened their first brick-and-mortar location in 1937 in Kensington Market. It quickly became a gathering place.
Moishe Davidson, 79, remembers stepping into the store with his mother; the cheese mongers would know her order and call her by her first name.
“It was like being part of a family,” he says.
Over the years, the family swelled and the kids and other relatives became part of the business, opening up — and closing — stores all over Toronto as the Jewish community migrated north and spread out around the city’s centre.
In 1959, Harry and Fay’s oldest child, Ron Daiter, along with his wife Rene (pronounced Reenee), opened up shop at 3519 Bathurst St., a few doors down from the one open today.
Tiny, with one isle, it was at the epicenter of local Jewish cuisine and, true to form, gave customers exactly what they wanted: noodle pudding and baked carp, even p’chau (sometimes spelled ptchau), a boiled calves’ feet dish that, in all its wiggly, jelly-heavy glory, is an acquired taste at best.
“It was so busy,” Joel says. “Everyone was tripping over each other.”
Even though they couldn’t afford it, Ron and Rene moved their operation in 1964 to a bigger store a few doors north. There they flourished for decades as one of many Jewish ma and pa shops, selling Hershey chocolate and tinned peaches — before it was common to ship fresh fruit from sunnier countries — barbecue chickens by the bushel-full, stinky cheeses and piles of Kosher salami.
People would come from across the city to buy their bagels and lox for Sunday brunch, chat about their families and joke around with sons Stephen and Joel.
Especially when the brothers opened a takeout counter near the shop’s entrance about seven years ago and installed the bench.
“It gives us the best view of what’s going on,” Joel says.
Specifically, of the Jewish community, which continues to evolve in its tastes and shopping habits and inches even further north along Bathurst St.
Shaynee Schwartz, owner of Shaynee’s Gift Selection, located a few doors down from Daiter’s, is a relative newcomer to this stretch of Bathurst St. But when she moved in a few years ago, another popular Jewish shop, Open Window Bakery, had just closed.
“It’s a downward spiral,” she says. “The dynamics and demographics are shifting.”
Suddenly, the brothers say, the long days and time away from their families didn’t seem worth the effort to keep up a family business that just can’t compete in an era of chain stores and specialty butchers and creameries.
Stephen and Joel sat down two years ago and decided to end their decades-old culinary legacy once they found a new tenant. The deal went through Dec. 31, 2014. Their 3,000 square foot space will become a children’s clothing store.
“I’m starting to become more comfortable with it,” Stephen says, of closing down. “But it’s going to be really tough.”
For everyone.
Garry Foster, president and CEO of Baycrest Foundation, across the street, says he’s grateful to the little store that has been a big supporter of the centre.
“Everyone in the neighbourhood likes to go in to Daiter’s for snacks, meals and groceries,” he says. “I have to tell you — we’re really going to miss them.”
The feeling is mutual, the brothers say.
The hardest part?
“The customers,” says Joel. “The kibitzing,”
“My wife asks me, ‘What are you going to do without all your girlfriends?’” Stephen says.
The men sit on the bench a few feet apart on this sunny morning, eating yogurt and granola as customers stop and chat.
“Seriously?” a tiny, elderly woman with a thick accent says, on her way out the door. “Where am I going to find my cream cheese and lox?”
“Good luck,” says another patron, walking quickly in the opposite direction.
After a brief, silly stare-down with the brothers, Smith, a mother of three who considers Daiter’s her de facto pantry, concedes: “I love coming in here. It’s the warm, family atmosphere.
“It’s very sad.”
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