Customers who walk into the new Kohn Meat Market are greeted by an old sharpening wheel just inside the door.

Customers who walk into the new Kohn Meat Market are greeted by an old sharpening wheel just inside the door.

Used long ago to sharpen butchers’ knives at the store’s former home at Egerton and Trafalgar streets, the antique is a nod to the history of the 63-year-old iconic east London business as it celebrates a reopening and a new location, owner Laura Cakarnis said.

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“I am happy now, we went through a hard time,” she said. “But when you fall, you gotta get up. You gotta fight,” she said of her work to reopen the store in a new spot.

“This is the oldest meat market in London. I wanted to stay close, I could not leave my customers who have been with us for 60 years.”

Last November, Carkanis walked into her shop at the old site and saw that the roof had fallen in and water was everywhere.

“My heart was broken when I went into work at 7 a.m, and found out it was gone. I had to shut it down, I could not serve anyone,” she said.

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But the damage was also a chance for a new space to address customers’ concerns about parking and Carkanis also wanted to have one large floor space.

Now located at 972 Hamilton Rd. in a plaza at Highbury Avenue and Hamilton, Kohn has been open for a few weeks and Cakarnis beams as she shows off her sparkling new home in the former bank.

“I always wanted to give my customers something nice,” she said. “This is shining and new, there are other shops here,” she says, referring to the plaza that includes a No Frills grocery store.

The new location is about 2,000 square feet, and Cakarnis invested about $200,000 in the space that includes a freezer installed in the bank’s former vault.

Cakarnis, 40, grew up in London and began working at Kohn at age 19 doing odd jobs.

That began her apprenticeship. After learning the craft of cutting meat,she bought the business 13 years ago from Don Scharback, who continued to work at the store until last year.

“I loved it. All the people were so friendly, joking around, it was not like work,” Cakarnis said.

“He needed a successor, someone had to do it. I felt that I could do it.”

She is perhaps most happy that, after being out of business for about five months, the customers have followed.

“They have been waiting for us,” Cakarnis said with a laugh.

Kohn Meat Market