Canadian Macedonian Heritage Society Canadian Macedonian Heritage Society
Become a member!
Become a member!

Heritage

Slave Petroff and Company

Steamship agency, banking & labour bureau · Toronto (King St E district) · Greater Toronto Area

Before there were restaurants there was the agency: Slave Petroff and Company sold steamship passages, moved remittances to the villages and ran a labour bureau for the men of the King Street East colony. Every diaspora begins with a business like this one — the office that connects the boarding house to the old country.

Details

Founded
early 1900s
People
Slave Petroff

Sources (1)

  1. https://torontomanyfaces.wixsite.com/ebook/47-the-macedonian-community

  • Scott's REIT / KEYreit

    Real estate investment trust · Toronto

    Closed sold 2013

    The property side of the fried-chicken empire: Scott's REIT, later KEYreit, held the land and buildings beneath hundreds of quick-service restaurants with John...

    Macedonian connection: The Bitove-chaired REIT that held the real estate under hundreds of quick-service restaurants.

    Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bitove

  • The Java Shoppe

    Coffee shops · North York (Toronto)

    Closed 1960s (absorbed into later ventures)

    A fourteen-stool coffee counter opened by a teenaged John Bitove Sr. — with Dotsa beside him — became five locations by 1962 and the seed of the largest private...

    Macedonian connection: The fourteen-stool coffee shop where the Bitove empire began; John Sr. was the Toronto-born son of immigrants from Gabresh.

    Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bitove_Sr.

  • The Toronto Raptors — the Bitove founding

    Professional basketball · Toronto

    Closed Bitove sold his stake in 1996–97

    On 30 September 1993 the NBA awarded Toronto its expansion franchise to a bid led by 33-year-old John Bitove Jr., who named the team the Raptors, served as its...

    Macedonian connection: The NBA came to Canada because John Bitove Jr. — grandson of Gabresh immigrants — won the expansion bid.

    Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bitove

Back to the directory

Know a business that belongs here?

Tell us about it, or put right something we have got wrong.

Suggest a correction

Suggest a correction

A volunteer reads everything that arrives here. Nothing is published automatically, and a removal request is honoured without argument.

So a volunteer can write back if something needs asking. It is never shown on the website.

So a volunteer knows what they are reading. Write in whichever language you prefer.

Still trading?

If you are not sure, say so — a volunteer will check. A guess is harder to correct than a blank.

An owner, a founder, a family story — whatever you know.

One web address per line. A newspaper piece, the business’s own site, a community newsletter — at least one.

Address, telephone, website, when it opened, who runs it — whatever you have.

Compiled from public sources. Inclusion is not an endorsement; corrections and removal requests are honoured without argument.