End of an Era: European Quality Meats Closes in Kensington Market after 53 Years

I remem­ber the day I was strolling through Kens­ing­ton Mar­ket in the heart of down­town Toronto and real­ized that, for the first time in my life, I’d found that place called “home”.

It was the late-‘70s and, a divorced sin­gle mum of a young daugh­ter Esther (now 40 years old, mar­ried and a suc­cess­ful ther­a­pist liv­ing in B.C.), my career as a food writer was ger­mi­nat­ing.  I was also learn­ing some hard life lessons. While deal­ing with a lot of painful change, I was about to find my calling.

As often hap­pens in my life, serendip­ity was about to strike.

Dri­ving through Kens­ing­ton in 1980, I decided to knock on the door of a Vic­to­rian row house on Augusta Ave. a block north of Dun­das over­look­ing Belle­vue Park. I don’t know what made me do it except that the loca­tion was per­fect and the house looked well main­tained. Here’s what happened.

An elderly, sweet-faced gen­tle­man came to the door. I asked if he wanted to sell his house. He replied in a Pol­ish accent: “You must be an angel from heaven — and yes.” It turned out he had lived in that home for 50 years and raised a fam­ily there. His wife had just died. An attempt to sell the place had failed. $80,000 later, I bought that house with my then-partner.

For the next 25 years, it and Kens­ing­ton Mar­ket were my home — and I mean that in every sense of the word.

The babysit­ter for my younger daugh­ter Ruthie, now 24 and about to grad­u­ate as an RN, lived across the park. The pub­lic school she attended for 10 years was a few blocks away. I bought impec­ca­ble food of all kinds from local mer­chants whom I called friends. Amadeu’s, the won­drous Por­tuguese restau­rant oppo­site my house, had the best patio in the city, a delec­table steak sand­wich and lus­cious grilled squid. It was my sec­ond home.

Mine was the ideal world to inhabit for a wan­der­ing Jew and fledg­ling mem­ber of the food media.

Fol­low­ing a recent five-year stint in the town of Strat­ford after Ruthie left home, I’ve returned to live in Kens­ing­ton. What pos­sessed me to think I could replace the colour­ful, vitally warm, feisty mix that makes this neigh­bour­hood unique?

Back on home turf, I’m also well aware that the one con­stant about this inim­itable place is change.

There used to be live chick­ens out­side the shops on Bald­win St. when I arrived. For a few years in the early ‘90s, an infa­mous spot a few doors from me called the Trop­i­cal Par­adise attracted more than its fair share of police atten­tion — mostly in the mid­dle of the night. The “egg lady” Cipora Off­man ran the famous fam­ily busi­ness on Augusta at Nas­sau for many moons until her death in 2008. Max & Son, a land­mark lit­tle Jew­ish butcher shop became Sanagan’s Meat Locker three years ago. And the amaz­ing empo­rium Sass­mart, still there, was once a crowded, elbow-to-elbow haven for shop­pers seek­ing a myr­iad of house­wares and house-coats.

Wave upon wave of immi­grants to Toronto have made Kens­ing­ton their favourite place to shop — and, in some cases, live — for gen­er­a­tions. Today, what was called “the Jew­ish mar­ket” is home to South Amer­i­cans, Chi­nese, South Asians, Por­tuguese, peo­ple from the Caribbean and other diverse cultures.

And on Sat­ur­day, April 7 — two weeks ago — a Kens­ing­ton land­mark, Euro­pean Qual­ity Meats and Sausages, located at 176 Bald­win St. in the market’s hub, closed its doors for the last time.

Last Day for Euro­pean Meats in Kensington

In prepa­ra­tion for an audio doc­u­men­tary on the chang­ing face of Kens­ing­ton, I took to the streets, micro­phone in hand. (That lively piece doc­u­ment­ing a his­tor­i­cal moment will be on this site in a few weeks).

Shalom Kenigs­berg has been the gen­eral man­ager of Euro­pean Meats for 43 of its 53 years.

He con­cedes that busi­ness has been going down of late. “There’s a dif­fer­ent kind of peo­ple,” he explained as we sat in owner Mor­ris Leider’s wood-panelled office on the sec­ond floor, boxes of rub­ber gloves, pic­tures and other stuff already packed in boxes on the floor. “It used to be family-oriented here. Now it’s sin­gle guys, yup­pies. The area has changed quite a bit. It’s going downhill.”

Long famous for their in-house, East­ern European-style smoked and cured meats — kiel­basa, pic­nic hams, pork hocks and the like — Euro­pean Meats has lost much of its for­mer clien­tele to the sub­urbs. Gone are the days when there were line-ups out­side and it took 45 min­utes to have your num­ber called.

Shalom says the huge three-floor shop is like home to him after all this time. “I’ve seen this place more than I’ve seen my wife and kids. But, like every­thing else, it’s got to come to an end.”

Tom Miha­lik, the tall, spiffily dressed owner of renowned cloth­ing store Tom’s Place a few doors away, loves to talk and does it well.

His father opened a place in 1958 on nearby Kens­ing­ton Ave. sell­ing used cloth­ing and fur­ni­ture with $500. “He was a pedd­lar in Hun­gary. Here in Kens­ing­ton, he became known for used white shirts, tuxe­does and fur coats.” Iron­i­cally, those are sought-after items today in the Market’s many pop­u­lar vin­tage stores.

Tom came to work at the store 10 years later at age 12. Today, he has a whop­ping 10 to 12,000 men’s suits in stock — rack upon rack of them.

“For me, the Mar­ket is home,” says Tom. “It has a lot of free spirit.” On a per­sonal level, “It means a lot to me to come to work each day and see the pic­tures of my mother and father that hang by the cash reg­is­ter. I think about how hard they worked.”

As for Euro­pean Meats clos­ing: “It’s a great loss. They were prob­a­bly the busiest meat store in the coun­try at one time.” Then he  quickly adds: “They will be missed but the Mar­ket will stay alive. You can­not kill the Mar­ket. The Mar­ket is here to stay.”

Sal Borg, owner of Sanci’s — whole­sale pur­vey­ors of veg­eta­bles and tropical/fancy fruit — is in the ware­house at the back of the store­front and house where his mother Frances Borg still lives. In between answer­ing the phone and dis­pens­ing orders, he chats with me.

Sal’s Sicil­ian grand­fa­ther built the place in 1929 as a retail trop­i­cal fruit store and banana-ripening ware­house. “We were the token Gen­tiles back then,” he quips refer­ring to the largely Jew­ish pop­u­la­tion of Kens­ing­ton at that time. “There were also Por­tuguese, Ital­ian — a mish-mash of peo­ple — and these days, Africans, Ori­en­tal and West Indian.”

Today, it’s a dif­fer­ent pic­ture. “There are lots of WASP-ish, trendy, long-haired health food fanatics.” The Mar­ket, he says, used to be “a vil­lage” but is becom­ing “a quaint lit­tle place in the mid­dle of Toronto, more of a des­ti­na­tion for tourists.”

Peter Sana­gan, 35, opened Sanagan’s Meat Locker, a tiny 400-square-foot shop in the for­mer Max & Son’s loca­tion on Bald­win St. three years ago. He sells local, naturally-raised meat and is typ­i­cal of Kensington’s new wave of young mer­chants who are fill­ing a spe­cial niche.

He chose this loca­tion because he loves the Mar­ket. “It’s a food-centric place with so many dif­fer­ent cul­tures.” The clos­ing of Euro­pean Meats, says he, “is unfor­tu­nate. It’s a land­mark for the area and draws a lot of busi­ness.” He sees the need for Kens­ing­ton to upgrade. “Every 15 or 20 years, a place needs a fresh coat of paint and to renew itself.”

I’ll give the last word to 79-year-old Mor­ris Lei­der who opened Euro­pean Meats at a small shop on Bald­win St. on Tues­day, Novem­ber 15, 1959.

Look­ing some­what frail and his voice break­ing, he speaks to me on his store’s clos­ing day. “I haven’t slept for four nights. I grew up here. This was my sec­ond home.”

Mor­ris is try­ing to find posi­tions for some of his 20-plus employ­ees at his main loca­tion in Etobicoke, a cou­ple of whom have worked in the Kens­ing­ton store for more than 40 years.

He says the peo­ple who own Essence of Life a cou­ple of blocks away have bought the build­ing and equip­ment therein. He hopes they con­tinue to sell meat.

He feels bad about leav­ing. Mean­while, he’s try­ing to heed his wife’s words. “She told me it isn’t the end of the world.”

It isn’t the end of Kens­ing­ton Mar­ket either. Just another reminder that it’s best to say a fond farewell to things that must end and try to embrace change.

Maybe a cup of tea and a cou­ple of mandelbrot/biscotti will help.

Frances Borg’s Man­del­brot Biscotti

Frances Borg (nee Sanci), whose son Sal still runs Sanci’s whole­sale oper­a­tion spe­cial­iz­ing in trop­i­cal fruit, is in her 80s and lives at the back of the vin­tage store that her fam­ily opened in the heart of Kens­ing­ton more than 80 years ago. She gave me this recipe in the late ‘90s for a fea­ture arti­cle I was writ­ing for the Toronto Star when I was the food edi­tor for that news­pa­per. They are a cross between the Jew­ish man­del­brot and Ital­ian bis­cotti — richer and crum­blier than a tra­di­tional man­del­brot, twice-baked in keep­ing with both cookie’s manda­tory bak­ing method. Unblanched almonds still have the peel on them. A stand­ing elec­tric mixer works well for this.

¹⁄₂ cup but­ter, at room tem­per­a­ture
¹⁄₂ cup veg­etable oil
1 cup gran­u­lated sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp finely grated lemon rind
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
¹⁄₂ tsp vanilla
¹⁄₄ tsp almond extract
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp bak­ing pow­der
¹⁄₂ tsp salt
1 ¹⁄₂ cups chopped unblanched almonds
Coat­ing:
¹⁄₂ cup sesame seeds (optional)
¹⁄₂ cup gran­u­lated or fruit sugar

Pre­heat oven to 375F.
In large bowl, using elec­tric mixer or hand mixer, beat together but­ter, oil and sugar until smooth. Add eggs; beat until thick and pale yel­low. Beat in lemon rind, lemon juice, vanilla and almond extract.
In another bowl, com­bine flour, bak­ing pow­der and salt. In three batches, add flour mix­ture to but­ter mix­ture, stir­ring to form a soft dough. Stir in chopped almonds. Divide dough into two pieces. Using your hands, roll each pice into a log about 15 inches long and 2 ¹⁄₂ inches wide.
For Coat­ing, in small bowl, com­bine sesame seeds and sugar; sprin­kle mix­ture over logs. Press logs onto work sur­face to coat evenly, mak­ing sure coat­ing sticks to dough.
Place logs about 3 inches apart on large greased bak­ing sheets. Press dough down with hands to flat­ten slightly.
Place in oven; bake 20 min­utes. Remove from oven (Do not turn oven off.) Cool slightly, about 5 min­utes.
Gen­tly trans­fer one log to cut­ting board. Using sharp knife, cut diag­o­nally into 1 inch-thick slices. Repeat with sec­ond log. Place bis­cotti on bak­ing sheet. Return to oven. Bake 15 min­utes or until golden brown.
Makes about 32.