Saul Zabar, Smoked Fish Czar of Upper West Side, Dies at 97

Clyde Haberman, The New York Times:

Saul Zabar, who across more than seven decades as a principal owner of the Upper West Side food emporium bearing his family name kept New Yorkers amply fortified with smoked fish, earthy bread and tangy cheese, not to mention pungent coffee, died on Tuesday in Manhattan. He was 97. [...]

What did he look for in a fish? His response to The New York Sun in 2007 was worthy of a cryptic Zen master: “It’s got to have taste. Not too this, not too that.”

But he was clear about his store’s iconic status. “There’s a romance about what we do,” he said in 2012. “We have a modern appearance, but we really do things the way they were done 40, 50, 75, even 200 years ago.” [...]

“We get asked often why we don’t franchise, because we have a lot of branded products,” he told the magazine Edible Manhattan in 2022.

“Money is not why we do this, not why we’re here seven days a week,” he said. “It’s a way of life for us. It’s kind of old-fashioned.”

Many people claim that they’re not in it for the money. Only some of them mean it. And those are the most interesting, and often most beloved, people in the world.

★ Saturday, 11 October 2025