Saslove’s Meat Market in the ByWard Market is to close after seven decades

Article content

Saslove’s Meat Market, a linchpin business in the ByWard Market for more than seven decades, is to close in late September or early October, its owner says.

John Diener, 70, cited a list of reasons for the closure, including declining sales in recent years, ever-mounting expenses, the decline of the ByWard Market as a shopping destination and the changing habits of public servants who used to frequent his premium butcher shop on ByWard Market Square.

Article content

“It’s been a losing proposition the last few years,” Diener said Thursday. “It’s the end of an era, but it is what it is. The current situation, I don’t think things are going to return to what they were.”

The COVID-19 pandemic that began in the spring of 2020 was the last straw for the business, Diener said. Public servants, who used to flock to the store after work, began working from home and business at the store dried up. While those public servants have returned to their downtown offices, their shopping habits have changed, Diener said.

“There just isn’t enough traffic down here anymore to sustain this business,” he said.

Diener is the second generation of his family to operate the butcher store. His father, Nathan Diener, bought the business from Sam Saslove family around 1954. Then, the Saslove family had five businesses in the ByWard Market — one for each sibling in the family, Diener said.

The name of the business stuck. “It was a good name, well-established in the city,” Diener said.

The original location of Saslove’s Meat Market was 30 ByWard Market Square, but it relocated to 50 ByWard Market Square about 25 years ago.

Article content

There just isn’t enough traffic down here anymore to sustain this business

John Diener

Diener worked in the store as a teenager, but then took a break. “My parents emphasized the need for an education to do something easier,” he said. He worked outside the business for years, but took it over in the 1980s when his parents retired.

There was a second Saslove’s location, on Wellington Street West, from the early 1990s until just before the pandemic, which Diener’s brother, Joel, operated. That store was sold in 2019 and is now the Wellington Butchery.

“While things have been difficult over the last few years, my family made a very good living from this business,” John Diener said.

The ByWard Market store has five employees, most of whom have worked there for more than a decade, said Diener. But when business was at its peak decades ago, there were twice as many people on staff, he said.

Back then, there were a dozen butchers in the ByWard Market, he added, and Saslove’s was one of many Jewish-owned businesses on that strip of the ByWard Market.

Diener said there’s been an outpouring of messages from well-wishers since the store’s closure was announced Wednesday on Facebook.

Article content

“It’s really nice to see that people are supportive and understand what’s going on and appreciate what we’ve done over the years,” said Diener.

The store has about $10,000 worth of frozen stock, which Diener announced would be sold at heavily discounted prices each Saturday until the store closes. The items meant to be sold this Saturday are already spoken for, he said.

Diener had planned to be retired by now. “COVID threw a wrench into those plans. I stuck it out,” he said.

He is looking forward to retirement, he said. “I‘ve lots of things to do to keep me busy,” he said.

phum@postmedia.com

Our website is your destination for up-to-the-minute news, so make sure to bookmark our homepage and sign up for our newsletters so we can keep you informed.

Article content