Profile of John Diener

By Joel Weiner

How do you accumulate over 50 years of experience in one of the ByWard Market’s most iconic businesses and also have the convenience of walking to work?  Start by helping out on weekends at your father’s famous butcher shop when you’re just 11 years old, eventually take it over and finally come to live in Lowertown. That’s how John Diener become owner of Saslove’s Meat Market and later a resident of our neighbourhood.

It was in the late 1950s that Diener’s father, Nathan, already a junior partner at Saslove’s, bought the business but kept the founder’s name. By the mid-1960s, John was already familiar with some of the operations, having spent parts of weekends and vacations doing odd jobs in the store. That routine continued as he progressed from elementary school through to college, where studies in commerce gave way to a fascination with mainframes and, ultimately, a successful career setting up computer systems for some of Ottawa’s leading companies.

In 1981, a now married John acquired Saslove’s from his father. A year later, he was joined by brother Joel. Today, the siblings have two outlets, the original at 50 Byward Market and a newer one at 1333 Wellington Street West. Both shops are known for being among the city’s finest purveyors of top quality meat and game, along with an expansive variety of sausages, poultry, fish, seafood and prepared foods.

Saslove’s also has the distinction of being the last dedicated butchery in the Market. “In my youth. there were at least twelve, in addition to two grocery stores with meat counters and some street vendors who also sold beef.” John recalls. “Everyone shopped in the Market in those days, so the amount of meat bought on those few blocks was unbelievable by today’s standards. Every Monday, so many trucks would deliver supplies from the wholesalers to all the retailers and it would take them hours to unload.”

Nowadays, John notes, most city neighbourhoods have supermarkets with large, modern meat departments, and Costco is another factor. “These box stores have improved their meat, poultry and fish sections,” he acknowledges, “and they are convenient for customers, especially in areas that didn’t exist before the city became as big as it is now. So, the Market is not the critical shopping venue it used to be.”

In this context, Market retailers have to have a niche. For Saslove’s, that means offering a broad range of top quality products, from such staples as ground beef, steaks, roasts and chicken to an array of specialty items including boar, bison, venison, lamb and duck, many types of unique sausages, and prepared foods like chopped liver.

That strategy has obviously worked for Saslove’s. “Customer still come to us in the Market from many parts of the city,” says John, “and we’ve also benefitted from population growth in the immediate area. New condos on Rideau Street and in Lowertown are bringing people into the district, as are infills and renovations. This is good for the city’s historic core, and it’s also good for us.”

John and his wife, Dayra, are themselves part of the influx. In 2008, when they were empty nesters after raising a family in the west end, they purchased a condo on Rideau Street and became Lowertown residents. Four years later, they moved to Murray Street. “We chose to live in the Market because so much of my life has been spent down here,” explains John, “and we both enjoy the character of the area.  I love being able to walk to work and we appreciate having all of the great things associated with downtown living, such as restaurants and theatre.”

In addition to being a businessman, John is also a noted genealogist. For many years, he was on the board of Gesher Galicia, an international organization dedicated to genealogical research related to the former Austria-Hungarian province of Galicia. He still attends the annual conferences of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies, is vice president of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Ottawa and used to write a monthly genealogy column for the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin. He also lectures on the topic, in Canada and the United States.

“Genealogy is a passion of mine,” he explains. “I started working on a family tree about 20 years ago and it’s grown from about 100 people to well over 3,000 today. I derive great satisfaction from finding relatives in different countries, developing relationships with them and uniting branches of the family that had no contact for decades.”