Schwartz's Deli

This guide to Schwartz's Deli on Saint Laurent Boulevard in Montreal follows the line that wraps the corner outside, and why regulars never walk off to an empty table down the block. You'll hear about Reuben Schwartz, a Romanian Jewish immigrant who once delivered smoked meat by horse and buggy before opening this sixty-two-seat room on New Year's Eve 1928, and the cure he and a partner worked out for the brisket that hangs in the smokehouse out back. It traces decades of owners saying no to franchising and no to more chairs, and what almost changed that in the 2010s.