Walking into Canter’s Delicatessen is like stepping into a warm, humming piece of L.A. history.
The original business was started by brothers Ben and Joe Canter in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1924. After the Great Depression shuttered that first shop, the family moved west and opened Canter Brothers Delicatessen in 1931 on Brooklyn Avenue (today Cesar Chavez Boulevard) in Boyle Heights.
As decades passed and the city changed, so did Canter’s.
By 1948, the family relocated to Fairfax Avenue—and soon afterward, in 1953, into its current home at 419 N. Fairfax Avenue, a former movie-theater building (the old Esquire Theatre).
Canter's legacy doesn’t just stop with the food but runs from the people who work there.