Rooted in family
Current owner Joe Morena and his three sons Vincenzo, Nicolò, and Roberto believe St-Viateur Bagel’s success owes a lot to their loyal and dedicated employees, many of whom have been hand-rolling bagels for over 25 years, and are an important part of the bagel-making family.
Like their fathers, the Morena boys have been in the bagel business since their early teens and proudly uphold the traditions passed on to them. They remain dedicated to this historic landmark and to the customers it serves, as well as to preserving Montréal’s cherished bagel tradition into the years to come.
St-Viateur Bagel has been baking its famous bagels for over 65 years and is proud to be the longest running bagel shop in Montréal.
60 years of tradition
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1950s
Future site of the landmark bagel shop at 263 St-Viateur West in Montréal’s Mile End neighborhood.
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1983
Dedicated to the art of making incredible bagels, batch after batch—current owner Joe Morena and founder Myer Lewkowicz with their dedicated team.
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1985
Proudly serving original recipe bagels to loyal customers.
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1985
The original bakery doors reopen after a fire. From left to right, Emma and Myer Lewkowicz, Jerry, Joe Morena, Abe and Hymie. Painting by Carole Dumont (2000).
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1985
Our landmark bakery stays open 24/7 and a second location opens a few blocks away on St-Viateur street to meet customer demand.
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1994
Founder Myer Lewkowicz passes, but his recipe and commitment to tradition lives on.
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1996
The first St-Viateur Bagel & Café opens in Montréal’s hustling Plateau neighborhood at 1127 Mont-Royal East.
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1997
The local community helps St-Viateur Bagel celebrate 40 years in business .
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2001
A second St-Viateur Bagel & Café location opens in NDG with its popular terrasse at 5629 Monkland.
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2007
Joe Morena (blue shirt) and his sons (left to right) Roberto, Nicolò and Vincenzo celebrate St-Viateur Bagel’s 50th anniversary by giving back to the community with a street festival and fundraiser for the Montréal Children’s Foundation—raising over $50,000.
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2012
The third St-Viateur Bagel & Café opens in the West Island at 821 Tecumseh in D.D.O.
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2013
St-Viateur Bagel delivers its signature sandwiches around Montréal, bringing smiles to parties, street festivals and other special events.
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2014
St-Viateur Bagel now serves Laval at its fourth bagel-café location featuring three traditional wood-fired ovens at 1585 Dagenais West.
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2017
To celebrate 60 years in business, St-Viateur Bagel continues to champion local causes - beating previous fundraising records by raising over $61,000 for the Montréal Children’s Foundation.
The full story
From Poland to Montréal
In 1953, when Myer Lewkowicz arrived in Canada, he didn’t know the first thing about baking anything, let alone bagels. He’d grown up in a large, poor family in a Jewish shtetl or village near Krakow, Poland. In 1942, he was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp. Years later, while speaking to a high school class, Lewkowicz said, “At Buchenwald, all I dreamt of was a piece of bread.”
Lewkowicz lived and worked in Germany after the war until he was discovered by Jewish Immigration Aid Services of Canada in 1952. He came to Montréal, where he got a job at Hyman Seligman’s Montréal Bagel Bakery on St-Laurent. Lewkowicz learned the bagel trade and just five years later, Myer and his wife Emma set up their own shop with Seligman on St-Viateur street, which is now our landmark St-Viateur Bagel shop.
New Ownership
Joe Morena was only fifteen when he started work at the Bagel Shop. He knew Myer Lewkowicz from delivering milk to his house every weekend. Morena’s cousin worked around the corner from the bagel shop and convinced him to apply for a job. Lewkowicz said, “Hey Yosel!”—the Yiddish name for Joe—and hired him to start that night. Serving so many older Jewish customers, Morena even learned to speak Yiddish. In 1974, he became joint owner of the business with Lewkowicz. The two worked as partners until Lewkowicz’s death in 1994. Then Joe Morena partnered with Marco Sblano to continue the St-Viateur Bagel tradition.
Growing and Giving Back
St-Viateur Bagel is a family owned and operated business. Over the past 65 years, we have grown to include 7 bakeries, 4 of which are Bagel Cafés.
St-Viateur Bagel has been featured in newspapers and TV shows on Food Network and the Travel Channel, like Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations and The Layover, Bob Blumer’s Glutton for Punishment, and The Today Show with Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb. Thousands of customers have visited the Bagel Shop, from native Montréalers to international tourists and celebrities—like local repeat customers Leonard Cohen, William Shatner, Céline Dion, Georges St-Pierre, Roberto Luongo, and Mordecai Richler, and also famous out-of-towners like Harvey Keitel, James Woods, Kelly Ripa, and Jimmy Kimmel.
Despite this continent-wide recognition, St-Viateur Bagel remains firmly rooted in its local community, determined to give back to the Montréal neighbourhoods that have supported them for so long.
A warm, perfectly toasted bagel will turn any breakfast into a satisfying experience. For 17 years, St-Viateur bagel hosted an annual charity breakfast at its Monkland location to help raise funds for the Generations Foundation, an organization that provides nutritious meals to underprivileged schoolchildren. St-Viateur Bagel is proud to have made a difference in the lives of Montréal’s children.
To mark major anniversaries, St-Viateur Bagel hosts epic community block parties. In 2007 when celebrating its landmark 50th anniversary, the bakery raised upwards of $50,000 for the Foundation of Stars, an important organization that supports pediatric research in Québec. For it’s 60th anniversary, St-Viateur Bagel broke all previous records and, with the support of so many suppliers, friends, families and volunteers, raised over $60,000 for the same organization.
St-Viateur Bagel is dedicated to the community it serves and will continue to support it for many years to come.
