Our history

In 1993, the Jakupovic family arrived in Canada with their two young children.

Mirveta and her husband Fudo Jakupovic always dreamt of creating a place where they could keep their cultural traditions, cuisine and memories of their homeland alive. Fudo Jakupovic had an idea to open a deli with a place to sit. That way their eastern European community in Ottawa could gather and enjoy the taste of home. That is how SKELA was born.  

After 17 years of tireless work, Mirveta and Fudo Jakupovic decided to retire and enjoy the rest of their lives traveling, fishing, hunting or simply spending some time with their family. After their retirement, they transferred ownership to Ilona Pap to continue their dream of keeping the homeland alive by serving the Ottawa community the food everyone fell in love with.

new ownership

Meet Ilona Pap

Native of Serbia, Ilona Pap has a nursing background and is a chemical and pharmaceutical engineer. After migrating to Canada in 1992 with her husband and starting a family, she spent the next decade raising her two lovely boys.

In 2000, Ilona Pap decided to re-enter the workforce and worked as project manager for many years. She had coordinated the new Project Management Graduate Certificate Program at Algonquin College and has taught several courses there over 10 years.

Over the years, Ilona began dreaming of owning her own business. She has always been passionate about health care, nutrition and beauty. Therefore, she decided to combine these interests and venture into the field of medical aesthetics. Ilona is a certified Laser Technician and opened her first aesthetics business, Body ‘N’ Bloom laser and aesthetics clinic. Her business is successfully operating since 2016.

Through her newest venture running SKELA, she will be able to combine her passion for nutrition and serving others in the community. Ilona is a successful entrepreneur and engaging person with a quick smile and easy laugh.

Community

Community is very important to us and we try to help out where we can:

• we host fundraiser nights at our local deli store, and a portion of the sales we generate is given back in support.

• we offer meal programs for a sports and academic teams.

• we build a menu around the needs of our community partners to accommodate groups of all sizes.

• we deliver at the discounted price when we deliver to a community partner’s event.

• we welcome a team or group of all sizes in our open concept kitchen for a lunch or dinner and offer a free Turkish coffee.