Upper West Side Icon Saul Zabar Dies At 97: Report

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — Saul Zabar, who helped turn his family’s Upper West Side grocery into one of New York City’s most iconic food destinations, has died at 97, The New York Times reported.

Zabar died Tuesday in Manhattan after being hospitalized with a brain bleed, his daughter Ann Zabar told the Times.

For more than seven decades, he helped shape the legendary store that bears his family’s name, known for its smoked fish, fresh bread, cheese and coffee. Founded in 1934 by his parents, Louis and Lillian Zabar, the shop began as a smoked-fish counter inside a Broadway supermarket.

Though he once planned to become a doctor, Zabar left college after his father’s death in 1950 to help run the business — a decision that defined his life and New York’s food culture.

“He would visit warehouses in Brooklyn, look at each fish, and taste them to pick out what he wanted,” his daughter Ann told Patch ahead of his 97th birthday. “Any car trip in the station wagon smelled like the smokehouse — it’s a smell that’s like perfume to me.”

Born June 4, 1928, in Brooklyn, Zabar attended Stuyvesant High School, Horace Mann, and the University of Kansas. He married Carole Ann Kishner in 1968. She survives him, along with their children Ann, Aaron and Rachel, and four grandchildren. Two of his children continue to work at Zabar’s, according to the Times.

Read the original story in the New York Times here.

Zabar’s is located at 2245 Broadway. For questions and tips, email Miranda.Levingston@Patch.com.