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Dunn’s Famous Delicatessen, which opened 20 years ago on Elgin Street and has served smoked meat to countless weekend night owls over the years, has closed.

“I’ve lost my restaurant. … It just hurts is all it does,” said Stanley Devine, who owns the business with his wife, Ina Dunn Devine, the daughter of the Montrealer who opened the original Dunn‘s Delicatessen on Montreal’s Ste. Catherine Street in 1927.

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Devine, 83, said business had dropped by half in the past few years as deli fare became less popular. “People started eating healthy. People aren’t eating smoked meat as much,” said Devine, who added that, for the same reason, delicatessens elsewhere are a dying breed.

“People started eating healthy. People aren’t eating smoked meat as much

Devine said he had been trying for more than a year to halve his $20,000-a-month rent by severing his 3,500-square-foot space in two and finding another eatery to share the space with him. But he was unsuccessful, and said upcoming construction on Elgin Street was a deterrent for prospective businesses that could have split his space.