When I got to Sable’s Smoked Fish (1330 3rd Avenue) at 3pm on a recent Friday afternoon, the place was packed. 

I sat down to interview Sable’s co-owner Danny Sze just as a longtime regular customer was finishing his meal. 

“Mark,” Danny called out to him, “take care. Have a good one!” 

“All the best to you!” Mark said. 

“It’s a family restaurant here,” Danny told me. “People, I know their name, and they know my name.” 

In fact, Sable’s has always been a family business. Danny co-founded Sable’s with his brother Kenny in 1990, after the Sze brothers, who are originally from Hong Kong, spent more than a decade running the fish counter at Zabar’s. 

Danny calls that experience his and Kenny’s “eleven year college.” 

“That’s how we learned the trade, the skill, how to cut fish,” Danny told me. 

While working on the West Side, Danny and Kenny noticed that East Side customers would often make their way across town to shop. “We saw the opportunity,” Danny says of the smoked fish gap in Yorkville. “That’s how we started.”

Thirty-six years later, the shop maintains  a distinctly local personality: “Lobster Salad is very popular in this neighborhood,” Danny says. In fact, it’s Sable’s best selling product.

That speaks to Sable’s unique story, and its special position amongst the city’s beloved Appetizing emporiums: Founded by immigrants from Hong Kong, selling traditionally (but not only) Jewish specialty foods in the nation’s largest and most diverse city, Sable’s caters beyond categories: The store, at different times of year, is bedecked with Lunar New Year decorations, Christmas decorations, and well wishes for Yom Kippur. 

All these holidays, Danny points out, across culture or religion, inspire gathering. “When people have a gathering,” Danny explains, “people want to have good food, and good conversation. They look to us because we have better fish, better quality, than other people.” 

When I asked about how Sable’s maintains its exceptional quality, Danny answered quickly: “Discipline,” he said. “And freshness.” 

Here’s Danny Sze’s primer on smoked fish: “Smoked Salmon is cured with sugar and salt, and smoked with Cherry Wood. That’s how we bring out the flavor. Not too much salt,” he explained.

Danny notes that customers will buy more once they’ve tasted what Sable’s has to offer. “If they taste it, they like it, they buy it,” he says. And New Yorkers have been buying it at Sable’s for almost 40 years. 

That’s long enough for Danny’s son Justin, and his nephews Andy and Chris to have joined the business. 

Just as generations of the Sze family have been keeping Yorkville in smoked fish, so too have generations of customers returned to the store. As Danny puts it, “When you serve customers good quality, they always come back.”

That’s how the business grows, along with relationships in the neighborhood. “I love that.” Danny says. “I don’t want to retire, because when I see my customers, I see my friends.”

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Find excellent Appetizing, and friends new and old at Sable’s, 1330 3rd Avenue.

Listen to our full interview with Danny Sze below!