By MORDECAI SPECKTOR
You can buy challa this Friday at Fishman’s Delicatessen and Bakery, and also for the following Shabbat. And then there will be no more challa from the kosher emporium at 4100 Minnetonka Blvd., in St. Louis Park.
Proprietor Stewart Fishman has announced that his store will close in February. Fishman told the Jewish World this week that he has to vacate the building by Feb. 21.
Stewart Fishman (Photo: Mordecai Specktor)
Fishman, who has operated the business since 1995 — and since 2001, in the space formerly occupied for many years by the Lincoln Del — said that he has been paying a “reduced rent for a number of years.”
He had hopes of continuing that arrangement; but the building’s owner, Stuart Ackerberg, wanted to return to the rent agreement signed in 2001. Fishman, who stressed that his business was still “viable,” said that the parting of ways was “amicable.”
Ackerberg reportedly intends to convert the building to office space.
Fishman mentioned some other factors in the decision to close now. When he opened for business in 1995, there was virtually no competition in the kosher meat business. However, in recent years there has been increased competition for the dollars of kosher consumers from Byerly’s nearby store in St. Louis Park, Cub, Costco and Trader Joe’s.
So, Fishman and his 27 employees will be moving on.
“We’re not looking back, we’re looking forward,” said Fishman. “We’re proud of what we created for the community.”
Apparently there is talk of someone or something filling the gap created by the closing of the only full-service kosher market in the Twin Cities.
“It’s like the law of physics, voids are always filled with something,” Fishman commented.
(American Jewish World, 2.4.11)
