Sixty years of St-Viateur: the "hole-y" grail of Montreal Bagels

Sixty years of Saint-Viateur The local mainstay celebrates its 60th birthday, and some 200 million bagels sold.

A flat sheet of dough is laid out, pulled and rolled into languid, doughy snakes. They’re wrapped around the circumference of a hand, boiled in honey water, and then baked in a wood burning oven.

That’s how they “roll,” so to speak— and if you repeat this step 200 million times, you will have successfully outdone St. Viateur bagel, which after 60 years still spreads the (sesame) seeds of tradition.

Every day, hundreds of patrons make the pilgrimage to the humble storefront in the Mile-End—known to many as simply ‘the Bagel Factory’-- to sample the food that’s become an unlikely icon for the city of Montreal.

It’s a 24-hour operation, and around the clock, customers are lined up outside of the door. In fact, it’s one of the city’s great equalizers: no matter whether you’re a celebrity, hockey player, tour guide, or everyday person, the line trailing outside is representative of Montreal’s unanimous love for its bagels.

However, St. Viateur is not only a local business success story, nor the patron saint of baked breakfast goods: it is representative of history and a cultural richness unique to our city.

When founder Myer Lewkowicz arrived in Canada from Poland in 1953, he searched for a purpose. Raised in a poor Jewish village near Krakow, Lewkowicz was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp.

Living in Poland during the war, he knew little to nothing about the bagel-making craft. However, if there was one thing the Lewkowicz remembered vividly, it was the hollow pang of hunger.

He once told a high school class that while held at the concentration camp, all he dreamt about was a piece of bread.

In 1957, after working for several years in a bagel bakery on Saint-Laurent Blvd, Lewkowicz set up his own shop – Saint Viateur Bagel. From then on, no one in the surrounding Mile-End neighborhood would be rattled by the same hunger pain that galvanized the shop’s owner.

Saint-Viateur’s current owner, Joe Morena, was only fifteen when he worked as a milk delivery man. Lewkowicz called out to him – called him “Yossel,” the Jewish name for “Joe”— and offered him a job.

Morena ended up partnering with Lewkowicz, and bought the shop after the death of its founder in 1994.

Morena estimates that he's hand-rolled some 25 million bagels – and picked up Yiddish—in that span of time. He’s also become accustomed to the presence of pop-culture legends who visit the institution, like the late Leonard Cohen, Celine Dion, Mordecai Richler, and even William Shatner.

“He would walk in every morning,” Morena said, “I would say ‘good morning Bill.’ I never knew he was William Shatner.”

This close knit, community feel is part of what makes former Montrealers melancholy for the presence of hand-rolled Saint-Viateur bagels.

And thanks to a new online option managed by Morena’s sons, the bagels now have a global outreach—for the homesick or curious folk in areas all over North America and Europe.

“What’s funny is you get people calling you and wanting to talk: ‘ah, I used to live in Montreal and now I’m out in Calgary, I’m in Edmonton, I’m in California—I miss your bagels. Can you send me some bagels?'” explained Vince Morena.

The store’s online bakery facilitates ordering bagels in all their varieties: whole wheat, flax seed, seedless, all dressed, multigrain—and for the traditionalists—poppy and sesame seed.

Morena said that the online store ships several dozens of bagels at a time: almost 500 orders for a dozen bagels come through the website every day. And there’s no indication that the demand for the golden-brown rounds will ease anytime soon.

Fun fact: 90% of these people opt for the classic sesame seed option, and only 10% order poppyseed.

So what is it that makes these Montreal bagels so remarkably timeless?

Some people seem to think that it’s the consistency in the recipe; others think that the atmosphere is fresh. Some people appreciate the historical value. And some are just hungry.

But Morena strives to cater to them all. Despite a small slip in sales once the "gluten-free" fad gripped the population, he rallied and introduced gluten-free bagel holes-- there's something for everyone, no matter the dietary restriction.

And all of these people are expected to assemble this Sunday for a block party to commemorate the sexagenarian restaurant—and in their typical community spirit, all the proceeds will be forwarded to charity.

Even though the Saint-Viateur story boasts a colourful roster of characters and anecdotes, in the end, Montrealers can really be separated into two defined categories.

How does the saying go? There are two types of people: those who love bagels, and liars.