Chez Greenberg: The honest Mile End deli that smoked salmon 'n' knishes built

When Chez Greenberg opened its doors in early 2025, it wasn't ready. Jake will tell you that himself. The back dining room wasn't functional, chairs were stacked against walls, and there was a cold draft coming from somewhere no one could quite locate. The menu was bare bones with bagel sandwiches of house-smoked salmon as well as knishes, latkes, and coffee.

"I was very hesitant to open because I'm always hesitant towards offering an experience that's not polished," Jake admits. "And for me, this was as unpolished as it gets."

But his partner Daniel Feinglos from Agriculture du Coin, the urban farm project next door, pushed him to just go. Test the market. See what happens.

People showed up, from families with kids and remote workers looking for a place to post up with a laptop to regulars from the neighbourhood who remembered Jake from his days at Zadie's smoking salmon out of his parents' kitchen and selling it online during the pandemic.

"My initial thought was: let's just do a smoked fish takeout counter. Russ & Daughters style. You come in, you grab your package, you leave," Jake says. "But people wanted to come with their kids, have a coffee, hang out. And I realized—that's actually the essence of what Chez Greenberg is supposed to be."

"My objective was to create a space that feels as if you were sitting at my parents' dining room table... That was my childhood. All my friends would come over. My mom was always cooking. That's the vibe."

The legacy

Jake Greenberg comes from hospitality royalty, whether he likes the term or not. On his mother's side: Waxman House, the family business that's been on Park Avenue since 1927. On his father's side was Rabiner's Hotel, a Laurentian resort that hosted Jewish families from Montreal for decades with a restaurant his dad and uncle opened in 1982 called Zadie's.

"My grandfather on the Waxman side was my idol," Jake says. "All I ever wanted to do was walk in his footsteps. I got to do that at the store for many years. And now, being able to keep talking about his legacy just a few blocks up the street? It feels right."

When the pandemic hit, Jake was working at Waxman, and his dad made smoked salmon at home. People started asking where they could buy it, Jake recalls. "My father is an amateur cook. When I asked how much pepper to add, he'd grab a handful and throw it in. Nothing was standardized. The product wasn't always consistent."

But Jake launched Zadie's anyway in May 2020. He proceeded to sell 75 pounds of fish out of his parents' kitchen despite never having made smoked salmon before. The operation was scrappy as he tried to figure out how to make the product consistent, scale up, and make this thing sustainable.

When Daniel Feinglos launched Agriculture du Coin, an urban aquaponics farm with a retail space on Laurier, he saw the opportunity to build an urban farm on Park Avenue, grow herbs and salads, raise rainbow trout, and create a retail space to sell it all. Chez Greenberg became that retail space.

"The farm—the base build is finished. They're building the system. We'll probably see leafy greens and herbs in the next four months. Fish in about a year and a half," Jake explains.

The product

St-Viateur bagels, cold-smoked salmon with hot-smoked tails that go into the smoked salmon cream cheese, a standard brine of salt, dark brown sugar, peppercorns. It's all simple on paper, but Jake says the seasoning and the smoking time—maybe once or twice a week, three or four hours at a time—makes it special.

The salmon's everywhere on the menu: A classic lox and cream cheese on a bagel with a schmear, the all-dressed number known as the Schmeer, composed salads that lean into the café side of things, and smoked salmon plates. The deli counter offers vacuum-sealed packs of smoked salmon to take home, house-made cream cheese (lemon, plain, or that smoked salmon version), and knishes and latkes by the half-dozen.

The knishes are a family affair. Jake's mom developed the filling of salt, pepper, potatoes, and caramelized onions. His mother-in-law—who immigrated from Bulgaria to Winnipeg and worked at a Jewish bakery there—taught him how to roll them. "I've been squishing knishes my whole life," Jake jokes. They go through about 200 pounds of potatoes a week.

The menu offers them as sides—smoked salmon knish, poutine knish—or by the half-dozen to go. Then there are the variants. The poutine knish, inspired by a latke poutine Jake made years ago for a fake Iron Chef competition at a Jewish community event. The apple pie knish (when it's in season), which came from Naveed, the café's head barista. Jake has a list of ideas in the chamber.

"The older Jewish crowd, when they hear 'poutine knish' or 'salmon knish,' they're like, 'Just give me a regular knish,'" Jake says. "But then you get them to try it, and they come around."

"There's no chef," Jake adds. "My taste buds decide everything. I trust my palate: I know what's good and what's not. We're constantly adapting and still working to perfect everything."

The menu's grown since that bare-bones opening in the winter—bagels, knishes, latkes, coffee—but it's grown in a way that makes sense. No meat. No eggs (not yet, anyway). Just fish and dairy, which keeps the operation focused and, as Jake puts it, "kosher enough" for people who appreciate the gesture even if the certification isn't there.

The space

Look closely at Chez Greenberg's space 5159 Park Avenue and you'll see small remnants of its former occupant, the bistro Lustucru. A neighbourhood fixture that's slowly but surely fading into the background, it'll have industrial style touches here and there, like boxy backed stools lining the open kitchen with metal pipe footrests.

When Jake first met with Ivy Studio to design the space, the plan was ambitious: A full kitchen buildout, display fridges for fresh produce from the farm next door, a counter pushed all the way to the back, a commercial smokehouse upstairs for wholesale production. The works. Then the city required a $185,000 ventilation system upgrade. Plans changed.

"My partner said, 'Look, you'll be able to build your Taj Mahal one day. But for now, you need to either cut back on the finishings or change the formula,'" Jake recalls.

He chose to change the formula. And now, months in, he's realizing the rough-around-the-edges version might actually be better. More honest. "I look at the designs put together, and I'm like, 'That ain't it,'" he says. "I almost want, like, an old raggedy-ass apartment on Hutchison owned by a Hasidic landlord. That's the vibe. I don't mind that the paint is chipped. I like this aesthetic."

Mind you, the space has settled into itself now. "I meet so many new people every single day," he says. "Tourists, people doing cool things. I love it. It's literally my favourite thing to do."

The long game

Jake doesn't know if Chez Greenberg is more like Wilensky's or more like Beauty's. He doesn't know if it's more like Arthur's or more like a schmear counter at Russ & Daughters.

"A woman came in yesterday and said she wished there was more variety on the menu," he says. "Most people say eggs. Most people say meat. Matzo ball soup. And I'm like, 'We only do fish and dairy. That'll never change.'"

It's partly a personal challenge. Partly guilt from doing an Orthodox conversion with his wife for three years and wanting to provide a space for people who keep kosher, even if the ingredients aren't all certified.

"I want to build something that I know will be here for generations to come," Jake says. "What that evolves into will be determined by the customer, the service, the space. Right now, I just want to stay focused on what we're masters of. If it means we have slightly less frequent visits because all we offer is a fish sandwich, then it'll evolve over time."

He pauses, and then says: "I'm not Beauty's. I'll never be Beauty's. But I want to create a legacy here. A legacy brand that's around for another hundred years."

"We're for the people. I know, I know, that's so basic. But my main goal for the space is to create an environment that makes people feel at home... This is exactly what I want to do."