Smallman Street Deli to close in Squirrel Hill

It’s the last year that Smallman Street Deli will sell potato latkes in Squirrel Hill, the most popular item sold during Hanukkah season: It’s closing Dec. 30, co-owner Jeff Cohen confirms.

“I’m 61 this year,” he says. “And I can’t be in two places at once.” The original spot in the Strip District will remain open, along with its sibling wholesale business, meat company Weiss Provision Co.

The lease is up on the Squirrel Hill space at 1912 Murray Ave., Mr. Cohen says, and “it has always been a little big for us,” at 5,000 square feet, versus the 1,800 square-foot Strip District location.

Mr. Cohen and his partner Bill Wedner bought Weiss Provision Co. in 1995, then moved it from the South Side to the Strip District and opened Smallman Street Deli in 2000. They had bought the building at the 2840 Smallman address in 1998.

“We want our deli to be the way we remembered them from childhood,” Mr. Wedner told the Post-Gazette when the Strip District location opened.

Back in the ’90s, Mr. Wedner worked in the produce business in the Strip District; through his job, he met Harold Weiss, a butcher and owner of Weiss Provisions. Mr. Weiss was getting ready to retire and was looking for a buyer for his plant on the South Side. He asked Mr. Wedner to let him know if he knew anybody interested in the meat business. And the rest is history.

Today, the wholesale business still resides in what had been a cheese terminal while what had long ago been a bridal store is now home to Smallman Street Deli, both part of the same property.

Five years after the Strip location opened, the Squirrel Hill location debuted, where people order Reubens and Rachel sandwiches, pastrami and stuffed cabbage. This location has a liquor license, which Mr. Cohen does not think he’ll transfer to the location in the Strip after it closes.

He will, however, expand Strip District hours in the next couple of weeks, as well as open Sundays from 11 a.m. to 3 or 4 p.m.

But in the last weeks of his 13-year tenure in Squirrel Hill, he says, “I’d like to thank all of our Squirrel Hill customers,” and points out that even though one location is closing, the original spot isn’t that far away.

As far as the food goes, it’ll be the same menu as always at the Strip District location. “Nothing has changed,” including the popular carved turkey sandwiches available Thursdays only, as they have been sold the past 18 years. “We get faxes still from people at their offices: ‘I want five. I want eight,’ “he says.

With one less space to tend to, “It takes the pressure off.” Of the wholesale and retail operation in the Strip, he says, “I can be there all the time to oversee both.”