A SLICE OF LIFE FOR 75 YEARS
Customer loyalty is a hallmark of Snowdon Deli
Customers are lined up at the Snowdon Deli takeout counter, and are asked what keeps drawing them back here.
“Best smoked meat in town,” blurts Prosper Azoulay. “Takes me half an hour to get here, because I live in Laval. But it's worth it. That's what has kept me coming back for 40 years.”
“It's those party sandwiches. ... I even dream about them,” marvels Amelia Facciola. “This place just feels like home, and I'm Italian. It's always like a party here.”
“Gotta love the chopped liver and the party sandwiches,” pronounces ex-montrealer Alan Rottenberg, who regularly makes the drive from his Ottawa home to fuel up on deli.
“I love it all ... the meats, eggplant, breaded chicken, the ambience, my buddies behind the counter — and I can walk here whenever I get the craving,” says Rhona Small.
“It's the coleslaw and the potato salad,” insists Edwin Semper.
Wait a minute! Word has it that Semper is the man and the hands behind this deli's addictive coleslaw and potato salad.
Snowdon Deli celebrates its 75th anniversary this month. Its steadfast customers, some of whom have been coming since Day 1, may be undecided as to what the magnet is for them — it's likely not the deli's accessibility on the logjammed corner of Décarie Blvd. and Isabella Ave. — but all concur there is nothing quite like it in the city, parking woes be damned.
Many of the deli's staff have been toiling here for decades. They concur there is nothing like it, too.
Semper, Snowdon Deli's longest-serving employee, has been knocking out the slaw and a variety of salads, from bean to cucumber to potato, for 50 years.
“The customers keep buying it the way we've been making it all these years, so I guess we're doing something right,” says Semper, 80, who was born in Montserrat. In moving to Montreal, he gave up his native Caribbean island's mahi mahi for this deli's gefilte fish, which won't be found in any body of water — it's a man-made amalgam of several varieties of fish.
“But I have had no regrets in coming here,” Semper says. “Maybe just the winter.”
Semper remembers well the Snowdon Deli founders: Brothers Abe, Joe and Phil Morantz. What Semper remembers best and respects most is that the three brothers were always there, in smocks, behind the counter, slicing meats, dishing out dills and preparing orders just like the other counter-people.
“It's the same thing with this group of owners,” Semper says. “They put in the same work and hours as we do.”
No question about that. The deli is open seven days a week, save for a few holidays, from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., and the owners put in full days, sometimes starting as early as 4 in the morning.
Smoked-meat cutter Bobby Hliaras can attest to that. A 40-year vet in the trade, having sliced at a host of delis around town, he has been cutting here the last three years. “What makes this place tick is there are no owners standing around in ties here and telling us what to do. They're workers.”
The smoked meat also helps. “The meat melts in your mouth, because it's so well steamed,” explains Hliaras, who shows off his skills by cutting perfect slices without looking — and without losing any precious digits in the process.
“But best to eat it medium or medium fat. Lean only exists when the doctor says `no more fat' to patients.”
With the passing of the three brothers, Snowdon Deli is now owned by the son of Abe, Ian Morantz; the grandson of Phil, Hart Fishman; and the married couple of Yanni Papoulis and Sophy Agelopoulos. Sophy's dad, John, had been a longtime counterman and co-owner before retiring a few years ago.
“It takes Sophy, who's Greek, to remind the Jews, Ian and myself, when the Jewish holidays are coming up and about the various rituals,” cracks 10-year deli vet Fishman, a pescatarian with the occasional fondness for a karnatzel. “She also knows the difference between kasha and kishke.” High praise indeed. Apart from the owners and the facade, little has changed over the years. The deli still serves up over 120 products on both its restaurant and takeout sides, from karnatzel to kishke, and, of course, the perennially popular party sandwiches and smoked meat.
And the deli remains a slice — not lean — of Montreal life.
Ian Morantz, who has spent the last 45 years behind the counter, has a simple explanation for the deli's longevity: “It's not `I' here — it's `we.' That's what my father and uncles taught me, and that remains the philosophy today. That's probably why we have some employees who started off with us as teens and are still with us 40 years later. We're a team. Without them, we wouldn't have lasted this long.”
Agelopoulos acknowledges that Greek cuisine plays an important role in her family's life at home, but allows that Jewish deli has been in her blood from the beginning. No sooner had her father arrived in the city than he headed over to Snowdon Deli for a job.
“They had no job openings at first and he ended up working one week for free, doing odd jobs,” says Agelopoulos, who studied psychology and criminology before coming to work here 20 years ago. “He was hired the next week and never looked back, working his way up from a dishwasher to a co-owner, but always working behind the counter. PRE-COVID, he still came in once a week to help out behind the counter.”
The only Greek item on Snowdon Deli's menu is Greek salad, which, frankly, is about as Greek as Danish pastry is Danish. “That's because I want to keep this place super Jewish Ashkenazi deli,” Agelopoulos says. “I even get irritated with having eggs Benedict on the menu. I want to keep it the way it was. I'm a chopped liver and latkes lover — maybe not so much a gefilte fish fan — and I don't want this deli to ever change.”
Others in the food trade lament the difficulty of finding staff. But save for two veteran waitresses who are now back at work in the restaurant, there were no other layoffs and no one left among the 30-person staff since the start of the pandemic.
With the closing of the restaurant side of the operation for more than a year due to the pandemic, the deli was dealt a blow — all the more so since its dining area can accommodate 104 noshers, which would normally account for about 35 per cent of the deli's business. But the partners note that a bustling takeout trade almost compensated for losses.
“They were lifesavers for me during the heart of the pandemic,” customer Small says. “Lifesavers, I tell you.”
For generations of Montrealers, Snowdon Deli is still the place to get takeout for everything from birthdays to Super Bowl bashes, weddings to shivas.
Seems deli knows not from depressions in Montreal.
Damon Runyon once mused: “There are two types of people in this world: Those who love delis, and those you shouldn't associate with.” Montrealers tend to belong to the former group, be they fanciers of the Main, Lester's, Schwartz's, Smoke Meat Pete, Zytynsky's or Snowdon.
But few Snowdon customers can match Hershey Roitman for deli devotion. With the restaurant side open again, he is here once and sometimes twice a day, for lunch and dinner.
“It's a classic deli, even though it's one of the hardest places to get to and park in the city. But the clientele is so loyal, they still come,” says Roitman, fressing on carp and eggplant. “It's a breakfast of champions. OK, maybe just lunch of champions, but still.”
Partner Papoulis disagrees. He's most passionate about the deli's kasha and bowties, a roasted buckwheat dish with tiny farfalle and fried onions.
“That's classic; same with the stuffed cabbage rolls,” says Papoulis, who has been at the deli since 2006. “And I've really learned to love kishke.”
For the uninitiated, Snowdon's kishke is essentially chicken fat meshed with some flour.
“I like to add a little brisket fat and paprika. It's unbelievable — a real delicacy,” Papoulis says. “My friends think I'm nuts.”
Snowdon Deli may not be offering a kishke special for its 75th anniversary, but if customers order a club roll at $9.75, they can get a second for 75 cents.
“Of course, it will only last for a few hours — at six in the morning,” Fishman says.
He's kibitzing. The special starts Saturday and is expected to last a week.
“Or until we run out of tongue,” Fishman adds. “That's cow's tongue pickled in brine. Now that's a real delicacy, and no tongue in cheek intended, either.”
That's the other big attraction at Snowdon Deli: You get a karnatzel with a side of one-liners at no extra cost.