Zimmerman’s Discount, a Kensington Market mainstay, is closing after more than 60 years

Living in Kensington Market can be great for a number of reasons, among them easy access to health-food stores, fresh produce, cool bars and good meat. The problem for area residents, though, at least for the past decade or so, has been that it can be hard to find anyone selling the basics—the trashy breakfast cereal, toilet paper and cheap brooms that everyone needs from time to time. That’s the niche that Zimmerman’s Discount, located at the neighbourhood’s main intersection, Baldwin Street and Augusta Avenue, filled for over six decades. But now the Star is reporting that father-and-son owners Zoltan and Danny Zimmerman are finally planning on closing the place down.

According to the Star, Zimmerman’s will close in the new year. It will be replaced by an organic grocery store to be run as a workers’ collective by Potsothy Sallapa, owner of 4 Life Natural Foods, a produce shop located near Zimmerman’s on Augusta. It’s impossible not to sense the invisible hand of the market in this changeover. Loblaws is planning to open a store at the base of a new condo development on Kensington’s northern border, which has put pressure on local grocery merchants. Zimmerman’s, with its Honest Ed’s-but-without-the-sense-of-humour vibe, would have had to compete on price or not at all.