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Canadian Macedonian Business Directory Canadian Macedonian Heritage Society · compiled from public sources

Compiled from public sources

Business Directory

The businesses Macedonians have built in Canada — the ones open today, the ones that came first, and the institutions that grew up around them.

134 Entries

70 Open listings

25 Heritage businesses

30 Organisations & media

31 Cities

How this directory was compiled

This directory has been compiled by volunteers of the Canadian Macedonian Heritage Society from public sources — the community's newspapers and newsletters, sponsor rolls, news coverage, and the businesses' own websites. Each entry notes how its Macedonian connection is documented. Inclusion is not an endorsement, and we cannot guarantee every detail is current. If something is wrong, out of date — or if you would rather your business did not appear here at all — write to us and we will fix or remove it promptly.

The directory

Businesses trading today, grouped by trade. Each card records how the Macedonian connection is documented and links the sources behind it.

Food & hospitality

3 of 15 shown

  • Macedonia Secrets Македонски тајни

    Bakery & Macedonian kitchen · Newmarket

    A mother-and-son bakery in Newmarket that CBC's food columnist Suresh Doss singled out as the place to taste Macedonian home baking in the Toronto region. Maggi...

    Macedonian connection: Family-run by Nicholas Georgievski, born in Richmond Hill to Maggie and Louie Georgievski, who emigrated from Strumica more than thirty years ago.

    Sources: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/macedonian-secrets-suresh-doss-1.6145010

  • Macedonian Mermaid Motel Мотел „Македонска сирена“

    Motel · Wasaga Beach

    Very likely the only motel in Canada with 'Macedonian' on the sign. Canadian Macedonian Place's newsletter records that Kosta Stanwyck, the cheese-maker and cat...

    Macedonian connection: Purchased in 2019 by Kosta Stanwyck, co-founder of Triple "A" Cheese and a builder of St Clement of Ohrid Cathedral — at the age of 89.

    Sources: https://canadianmacedonianplace.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/13225-CMP-Zdravets-Newsletter-SinglePage-r1-FL-cropped.pdf

  • Meca Grill

    Grill restaurant · Scarborough

    A Scarborough grill remembered in Canadian Macedonian Place's newsletter, where its staff made memorial donations together as 'the gang at Meca Grill'. That sma...

    Macedonian connection: Its crew appears in Canadian Macedonian Place's newsletter making memorial donations as 'the gang at Meca Grill' — the signature of a community kitchen.

    Sources: https://canadianmacedonianplace.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/CMP-Zdravets-Newsletter_2022.pdf

Nothing in this trade matches the current filters.

Health & wellness

0 of 6 shown

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Finance, accounting & insurance

2 of 7 shown

  • Michael Georgiev — Jones DesLauriers Insurance

    Commercial insurance · GTA

    Community-affiliated

    Commercial insurance broker Michael Georgiev has kept Jones DesLauriers on the Macedonian Open's silver sponsor list across multiple seasons, and his own name a...

    Macedonian connection: Michael Georgiev brings Jones DesLauriers onto the Macedonian Open sponsor rolls and appears personally among CMP's golf donors.

    Sources: https://canadianmacedonianplace.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Zdravets-Newsletter-Spring-2026.pdf

  • Michael R. Stoyan — Fuller Landau LLP

    Accounting & advisory · Toronto

    Community-affiliated

    Michael Stoyan keeps the books that matter most to the community: he is the volunteer treasurer of Canadian Macedonian Place, and his firm, the Toronto accounti...

    Website: https://www.fullerllp.com

    Macedonian connection: Michael Stoyan serves as treasurer of Canadian Macedonian Place; Fuller Landau appears under his name among the ReImagine Gala's Unity sponsors.

    Sources: https://canadianmacedonianplace.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Zdravets-Newsletter-Spring-2026.pdf

Nothing in this trade matches the current filters.

Real estate & mortgages

1 of 8 shown

  • Maja Dimitrievski — Real Estate Agent

    Residential real estate · North York / GTA

    Maja Dimitrievski helps GTA families buy and sell homes from Golden House Realty's North York brokerage, and she says so where her community reads it: in the pa...

    Telephone: 416-347-7689

    Website: https://www.goldenhouserealty.com

    Macedonian connection: A Macedonian-Canadian realtor advertising to the community in the Macedonia newspaper.

    Sources: https://macedonianewspaper.com/files/uploads/December,%202024.pdf

Nothing in this trade matches the current filters.

Construction & trades

1 of 6 shown

  • Mainline Fire Protection

    Fire & life-safety systems · Concord (Vaughan)

    Mainline Fire Protection designs, installs, inspects and services fire alarms, sprinklers and suppression systems for more than 800 properties across the GTA, p...

    Address: 411 Bradwick Drive, Unit 12, Concord, ON L4K 2P4

    Telephone: 416-305-0704

    Website: https://www.mainlinefire.com

    Macedonian connection: Co-principal Nick Janevski brings the firm onto the Macedonian Open's gold sponsor roll.

    Sources: https://www.mainlinefire.com/

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Manufacturing

0 of 4 shown

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Automotive

0 of 5 shown

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Retail & services

0 of 4 shown

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Media & creative

4 of 9 shown

  • Macedonia Newspaper (Весник „Македонија“) Весник „Македонија“

    Community newspaper · Mississauga

    Every month since November 1984, Macedonia has arrived in the community's churches, delis and pharmacies — more than 490 issues of news from the diaspora and th...

    Address: 1840 Bloor Street, Suite 711, Mississauga, ON L4X 1T2

    Telephone: 416-827-0954

    Website: https://macedonianewspaper.com

    Macedonian connection: The Macedonian-Canadian community's newspaper of record for over forty years.

    Sources: https://macedonianewspaper.com/files/uploads/June,%202026.pdf

  • Macedonian Edition TV

    Television programme · Toronto

    Pobeda Piskaceva emigrated from Macedonia in 1990 with a law degree and a journalist's instincts, and in 1998 she launched Macedonian Edition on Rogers Cable —...

    Telephone: (416) 503-2285

    Website: http://macedonianedition.tv

    Macedonian connection: Pobeda Piskaceva — trained as a lawyer in Macedonia, emigrated in 1990 — has produced, shot, written and reported the programme since 1998.

    Sources: https://macedonianhistory.ca/news/2nd-annual-canadian-immigration-celebration-women-their-accomplishments — Society news archive — the profile of Pobeda Piskaceva and Macedonian Edition

  • Mack Media Inc.

    Media production · GTA

    Frank Mackovski's media company enters the community's record not through an advertisement but through the 2022 Zdravets newsletter's thank-you column: when Can...

    Macedonian connection: Frank Mackovski's firm donated protective face shields to Canadian Macedonian Place through the pandemic.

    Sources: https://canadianmacedonianplace.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/CMP-Zdravets-Newsletter_2022.pdf

  • Michael Close — Fine Art

    Painter · Toronto

    An OCAD-trained Canadian Macedonian painter whose canvases carried the community's name to the highest tables: when the prime ministers of Canada and Macedonia...

    Macedonian connection: A Canadian Macedonian artist; his paintings were the official gifts presented to the prime ministers of Canada and Macedonia at their diplomatic meeting.

    Sources: https://macedonianhistory.ca/news/canadian-macedonian-artist

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Technology

1 of 3 shown

  • Mobilen Communications Inc.

    Telecommunications · GTA

    Christopher Stojcev's telecommunications venture — its very name is the Macedonian word for 'mobile' — appears among the Macedonian Open's bronze sponsors with...

    Macedonian connection: Founder Christopher Stojcev sponsors the Macedonian Open through the company.

    Sources: https://canadianmacedonianplace.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Zdravets-Newsletter-Spring-2026.pdf

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Travel

0 of 1 shown

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Entertainment & gaming

0 of 2 shown

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The honour roll

Macedonian names at the top of Canadian business. They sit apart so that a Nasdaq-listed company does not share a row with a dental practice.

  • Macedonia 2025

    Diaspora economic-development organisation · International; strong Canadian chapter

    The diaspora's economic engine room: a non-political 'think and do tank' founded in 2007 to lift North Macedonia's economy through competitiveness, entrepreneur...

    Website: https://www.macedonia2025.com

    Macedonian connection: The diaspora's business 'think & do tank', founded and led in large part by Macedonian-Canadian executives.

    Sources: https://www.macedonia2025.com/

Nothing here matches the current filters.

Heritage

The businesses that built the community. All of these are closed; the directory above is what they paid for.

The first Macedonians reached Toronto around the turn of the last century, overwhelmingly young men from the Aegean villages — Zhelevo, Oshchima, Banitsa, Gabresh, Buf — and the failed Ilinden Uprising of 1903 turned a trickle into a migration. An internal community census counted about 1,090 Macedonians in the city by 1910, clustered in three settlements, the largest of them around King Street East and Eastern Avenue. They worked the abattoirs, the foundries and the sheet-metal shops, lived in boarding houses, and organised village mutual-benefit societies — the Zhelevo Benevolence Brotherhood and the Oshchima Benefit Society, both founded in 1907 — which served as the community's first banks and its first employment bureaus. The earliest businesses served the colony itself: Slave Petroff and Company sold steamship tickets, wired remittances home and ran a labour bureau, and by about 1910 Lambo Tenekeff, whom everyone called Mr. Louis, had turned three years of butchering into Louis Meat Market.

Factory hands became counter men. Over the next half-century Macedonians moved out of abattoir shifts and into food shops of their own — butchers, grocers, dairy bars, fruit markets, shoe-shine parlours, and above all restaurants: lunch counters, grills, fish-and-chip shops and burger rooms. Professor Harry Vjekoslav Herman's study Men in White Aprons documented both the mechanism and the result. The mechanism was kinship: village partnerships, a brother-in-law's loan, a dishwasher who became a cook and then an owner. The result, as Professor Herman's research was presented to this society, was that by 1970 Macedonian families owned or operated more than a fifth of the independent restaurants and diners of the Greater Toronto Area. The trade acquired its own institution in the Canadian Macedonian Restaurant Co-op, founded in 1970, and its profits paid, systematically, for the next generation's professional degrees.

A few of those rooms lasted long enough to be remembered by name: the Majestic, opened in Hamilton by Dan Kuzoff in 1933; the Patrician Grill on King Street East, opened by Louie Papas in 1953 and closed in 2026 after seventy years; the 3 Star in the Beach, bought by Tom Gulin in 1955. Beyond Toronto the same pattern repeated in Hamilton, in Windsor, and in towns like Welland, where a Macedonian grocery store or restaurant anchored a family economy for two generations.

Two families turned the food trade into national business. Steve Stavro, born in Gabresh in 1926 and brought to Toronto in 1933, was a butcher's son who left school after Grade 10; his produce stand of 1951 became Knob Hill Farms, and its "food terminals" — from Markham in 1963 to the 340,000-square-foot Cambridge store billed in 1991 as the largest food store in the world — invented the Canadian big-box grocery decades before Costco crossed the border. His fortune bought the Toronto Maple Leafs and built the arena now called Scotiabank Arena. John Bitove Sr., born in Toronto in 1928 to immigrants from the same village, went from a fourteen-stool lunch room called the Java Shoppe to forty franchise outlets, then to the catering contracts for Pearson Airport and the SkyDome, merged in 1989 into one of Canada's largest private food-service companies. Both men banked the community as they rose — Stavro through his family foundation, Bitove by founding Canadian Macedonian Place in 1978 with his wife Dotsa.

Their children's generation went to university. The restaurant families produced the lawyers, accountants, physicians, dentists and realtors who fill this directory's modern pages, and by 1992 those professions had organised themselves into the Canadian Macedonian Business and Professional Association and the Macedonian Canadian Medical Society, now the Canadian Macedonian Health Professionals' Association. A second marquee generation emerged alongside them: John Bitove Jr., who won Toronto the NBA's Raptors in 1993 and founded XM Radio Canada; Mike Zafirovski, born in Skopje, who ran Nortel Networks from 2005 to 2009; and Susan Niczowski, who built Summer Fresh out of her mother's kitchen in 1991 into a North American prepared-foods company.

The pattern holds today at both ends of the scale. Jordan Bitove owns and publishes the Toronto Star; Chris Pavlovski's Toronto-founded Rumble trades on the Nasdaq. On the main street there is the Damceskis' California Restaurant on Pape Avenue, the Georgievskis' Macedonia Secrets, an Oakville aerospace plant that advertises its jobs in Macedonian, the Stanwyck cheese works, and the realtors, dentists and contractors whose names fill the Macedonia newspaper's advertising columns and the Macedonian Open's sponsor boards. A new Canadian Macedonian Chamber of Commerce began organising in 2025. The businesses below are closed now, but the community they built — and the businesses that fill the directory above — are their receipts.

A hundred and twenty years, in dates

  1. 1903

    The Ilinden Uprising fails; mass emigration from Aegean Macedonia begins.

  2. 1907

    The Zhelevo Benevolence Brotherhood and the Oshchima Benefit Society are founded in Toronto — the community's first banks and employment bureaus.

  3. 1910

    A community census counts about 1,090 Macedonians in Toronto. Louis Meat Market opens around this time.

  4. 1911

    Sts Cyril and Methody, the community's first church, is founded.

  5. 1919

    Nikola and Vana Bitove arrive from Gabresh.

  6. 1926

    Steve Stavro is born in Gabresh; some sources give 1927.

  7. 1933

    The Stavro family reaches Toronto. Dan Kuzoff opens the Majestic in Hamilton.

  8. 1940

    More than 1,200 Macedonian families are living in Toronto.

Show all 41 dates
  1. 1942

    The first Macedonian Open golf tournament is played.

  2. 1947–49

    The Greek Civil War sends the Detsa Begalci refugee generation to Canada; many later prominent in business.

  3. c.1949

    A teenage John Bitove Sr. opens the fourteen-stool Java Shoppe.

  4. 1951

    Steve Stavro's produce stand opens on Queen Street East — the seed of Knob Hill Farms.

  5. 1953

    Louie Papas opens the Patrician Grill on King Street East.

  6. 1955

    Tom Gulin buys the 3 Star Restaurant in the Beach.

  7. 1959

    The United Macedonians Organization is founded; Ensemble Makedonka is formed.

  8. 1962–65

    St Clement of Ohrid Cathedral is chartered, and opens for services three years later.

  9. 1963

    The first Knob Hill Farms food terminal opens in Markham — Canada's big-box grocery pioneer. The Skopje earthquake drives a new wave of emigration.

  10. 1970

    The Canadian Macedonian Restaurant Co-op is founded. Professor Herman's research puts Macedonians at more than 20 per cent of the GTA's independent restaurants.

  11. 1978

    John and Dotsa Bitove found Canadian Macedonian Place; some sources give 1979.

  12. 1979

    VAC Developments is founded by the Hristovski family.

  13. 1983

    York County Quality Foods wins the Pearson Airport catering contract.

  14. 1984

    Tanas Jovanovski founds the Macedonia newspaper.

  15. 1989

    The Bitove Corporation is formed; John Bitove Sr. is appointed to the Order of Canada.

  16. 1991

    Knob Hill's Cambridge terminal opens as the "world's largest food store". Summer Fresh is founded, and so is this society.

  17. 1992

    The Canadian Macedonian Business and Professional Association and the Macedonian Canadian Medical Society are founded.

  18. 1993

    The NBA awards the Raptors to John Bitove Jr.'s group on 30 September.

  19. 1994

    Steve Stavro takes control of Maple Leaf Gardens Ltd.

  20. 1996

    Kosta Stanwyck founds Triple "A" Cheese with his sons Chris and Tom.

  21. 1999

    The Air Canada Centre opens under Stavro's chairmanship.

  22. 2000–01

    Knob Hill Farms closes; every debt and every employee is paid in full.

  23. 2002–05

    John Bitove Jr. founds Canadian Satellite Radio; XM launches in Canada.

  24. 2006

    Steve Stavro dies. The Macedonian Film Festival is founded.

  25. 2007

    This society republishes Men in White Aprons with the Restaurant Co-op and the Argiro family. Macedonia 2025 is founded.

  26. 2013

    Rumble is founded in Toronto by Chris Pavlovski.

  27. 2015

    John Bitove Sr. dies; Mobilicity is sold to Rogers.

  28. 2019

    Kosta Stanwyck, at 89, buys the Macedonian Mermaid Motel in Wasaga Beach.

  29. 2020–23

    Jordan Bitove acquires Torstar and becomes sole owner and publisher of the Toronto Star.

  30. 2022

    Rumble lists on the Nasdaq. John Bitove Jr. enters the Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame.

  31. 2024

    Canadian Macedonian Place's ReImagine Gala honours Susan Niczowski and raises $825,000.

  32. 2025

    Chris Pavlovski becomes a billionaire. A Canadian Macedonian Chamber of Commerce begins organising.

  33. 2026

    The Patrician Grill closes after seventy years. This directory is compiled.

The businesses that came first

Closed, remembered, and part of why the rest of this directory exists.

  • Macedonian Village, Whitby

    Settlement & enterprise · Whitby

    Around 1945 two Macedonian immigrants, Stato Kozaroff and Vasil Phillips, founded an actual place called Macedonian Village in what is now Whitby — enterprise a...

    Macedonian connection: A hamlet founded by two Macedonian immigrants, commemorated today by Phillips-Kozaroff Park.

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

  • Majestic Restaurant

    Restaurant · Hamilton

    Closed 1969 (expropriated for Jackson Square)

    Dan Kuzoff, a Macedonian immigrant, opened the Majestic in downtown Hamilton in 1933 and built it into a 150-to-200-seat room where mayors — Lloyd Jackson, Vic...

    Macedonian connection: Founded by Dan Kuzoff, a Macedonian immigrant, per Hamilton Public Library's Local History & Archives.

    Sources: https://www.flickr.com/photos/hpllocalhistory/14001037617/

  • Maple Leaf Gardens Ltd. — the Stavro years

    Sport & entertainment · Toronto

    Closed sold 2003

    The boy who sorted fruit on Queen Street ended up owning the Toronto Maple Leafs. Steve Stavro joined the Maple Leaf Gardens board in 1981, took the chair in 19...

    Macedonian connection: The grocer from Gabresh became owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs and the driving force behind the arena now called Scotiabank Arena.

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

  • Mobilicity

    Wireless carrier · Toronto

    Closed sold to Rogers, 2015

    Bitove's run at the wireless oligopoly: Mobilicity launched in 2010 as a discount carrier in Canada's biggest cities and was sold to Rogers Communications in 20...

    Macedonian connection: The discount wireless carrier founded by John Bitove Jr.

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

  • Montecito Restaurant

    Restaurant · Toronto (Entertainment District)

    Closed 2020s

    The Bitove brothers' Entertainment District restaurant, opened with filmmaker Ivan Reitman, carried the family's hospitality name into Toronto's premiere-night...

    Macedonian connection: The Bitove brothers' Adelaide Street restaurant, which sent Mother's Day lunch to Canadian Macedonian Place's residents during the pandemic.

    Sources: https://canadianmacedonianplace.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/CMP-Zdravets-Newsletter_2022.pdf

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Organisations & media

The churches, associations and publications the community's business life has always run through. Listed for reference, not as businesses.

Churches

0 of 8 shown

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Associations & institutions

4 of 16 shown

  • Macedonia 2025

    Economic-development organisation · International (Canadian chapter)

    The diaspora's business development organisation; see the honour-roll entry for its deep Canadian bench.

    Website: https://www.macedonia2025.com

    Sources: https://www.macedonia2025.com/

  • Macedonian Business Association of Canada

    Business association · Mississauga

    Founded January 2012 with a board including Vasko Pastenarov, Antoni Bozinovski, Vesna Anastasova, Zoran Ivanovski, Vase Georgievska, Vlatko Cokov and Filip Spa...

    Sources: http://macedonia-tourism.blogspot.com/2012/01/macedonian-business-association-of.html

  • Macedonian Centre for Cultural & Social Integration

    Community organisation · Canada

    A cultural and social integration organisation carried on the society's community links page.

    Website: http://www.macedoniancentre.ca

    Sources: https://macedonianhistory.ca/links

  • Macedonian Film Festival

    Film festival · Toronto

    Twenty editions and two hundred films of Macedonian cinema for Canadian audiences, most recently at Imagine Cinemas Carlton.

    Website: https://www.macedonianfilmfestival.com

    Sources: https://www.macedonianfilmfestival.com

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Media

3 of 6 shown

  • Macedonia Radio (CHKT 1430 AM)

    Radio programme · Toronto

    Saturday-morning Macedonian radio on Toronto's CHKT 1430 AM, per community references.

    Telephone: (905) 265-2197

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

  • Macedonian Edition TV (media reference)

    Television · Toronto

    Pobeda Piskaceva's community television programme — see the full business entry under Media & creative.

    Website: http://macedonianedition.tv

    Sources: https://macedonianhistory.ca/links

  • Macedonian Heritage Hour

    Television/YouTube programme · Toronto

    The long-running heritage television programme (formerly on OMNI as Makedonski Koreni), now reaching the community on YouTube.

    Website: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuvIVbEWeZshaWNKiNSNnTw

    Sources: https://macedonianhistory.ca/links

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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.