Patricia Street Deli reopens with roots and resilience
After a wildfire erased their Jasper location, four owners built something warmer in Edmonton: a sandwich bar that remembers your name.
Patricia Street Deli was a staple in Jasper for over 20 years before the Chetamon Wildfire took it all in 2024 — everything except a wooden table that had been at the core of the business since founder Glen Leitch opened in 2004. That loss became a pivot. A survey revealed most customers were from Edmonton, so the four owners — Leitch, his wife Wendy, Dustin Florence, and Jaimie Kreklewetz — decided to start over in the city.
The new space opened in December 2025 and feels nothing like the original cramped Jasper deli. Dark washed walls frame a fireplace. Light pours in. It's styled as a moody home bar — the kind of place where you cancel your day plans and stay for hours.
The heart is a 10-foot sandwich bar. Nearly all ingredients are made in-house: rotisserie chicken, aged cheeses, house-made sauces, breads. The fan favourite is "The Bird" — rotisserie chicken, cranberry mayo, and cranberry chutney. But the draw is building your own. A customer during the review built a hefty sandwich of rotisserie chicken, aged white cheddar, vegetables, and three house sauces: chipotle, garlic, and honey habanero. Full gluten-free section available.
Wendy laughed when asked if Glen had "talked my ear off" to a visitor. "He tends to do that," she said, "but that's why people love him." That hospitality — the sense you'll be remembered by the third visit — is the real product. Patricia Street Deli also runs a Kindness Sandwich Program: anyone facing financial barriers gets a meal, no questions asked. Anyone can pay it forward.
It's not fast food. It's family.