The Schnitzel Queen has been serving up schnitzel for over 25 years on Queen Street East near Sherbourne. Open only on weekdays for lunch and dinner, the small menu features schnitzel sandwiches, schnitzel dinners and sides of Potato Salad, Sauerkraut, and Mushroom Sauce.
Karl Hubsch, the German-born Czech Canadian, knows his schnitzel.
“I've been eating schnitzel since I was one. It's the cultural dish of my Czech background and it was a tradition in our home to eat it every Sunday,” says Karl.
“Since I was 12, we would make schnitzel every Sunday. I was making schnitzel with my mother and inviting friends over. We’d eat schnitzel, drink beer and eat more schnitzel. So I always had this idea in my head that one day I should be making schnitzel and selling it because back when I was younger, nobody knew what schnitzel was.”
But Bernard and Theresa Untergassen certainly did. He was German, she was Polish and they ran Schnitzel Queen like their own kitchen. He'd be in the back preparing his namesake sandwich, Schnitzel à la Bernard, topped with potato salad and roasted onions, while she'd regale any customers who would listen with the story of how she and Bernard met.
Among them was Karl, who'd sit in one of the four seats at Schnitzel Queen's counter every Friday, something he’d been doing for years. So when the Untergassen's decided to retire in March 2013, Karl was the perfect candidate to take over.
“They liked my character. They figured my character would be able to handle a transition like a restaurant, which is very risky,” he says.
It probably helped that Karl's wife is also Polish, especially given that he'd never cooked in a commercial kitchen or ran a restaurant before.
“I'm just a go-getter,” he says. “My theory is you just got to jump in the water because nobody knows what's in the water. It could be a shark or it could be a treasure chest filled with gold, you never know.”
