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A minor victory for anti–junk food forces came last week as the creepy despot of the beef kingdom, Burger King, served its last meal from the Hospital for Sick Children’s food court. Some doctors at Sick Kids had been agitating to get Burger King shut down through a Facebook group suffering from severe friend anemia (seriously, 258 members?), but the process has apparently been underway for some time: Sick Kids had decided to auction off BK’s slot, and has managed the process so that something a bit healthier would win the competition.
The latest restaurant buzz, including what’s opening, what’s closing, and where to eat, drink and be seen
Sick Kids dumps Burger King from food court, but Pizza Pizza and Subway remain
Open Window may be closed for good
Challah at the Open Window Bakery (Image: grongar)
Even delivery truck drivers were surprised to find that Open Window Bakery, one of Toronto’s most venerable family-run bakeries, had suddenly closed its doors earlier this week. According to the CBC, trucks were still making their way to Open Window’s flagship on Finch Avenue Tuesday morning, but were unable to unload.
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Hipster temple Oddfellows to close in February
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Oddfellows—the only Queen West hipster hangout with a roving Winnebago—is closing. Eye Weekly reported the news earlier today, along with the fact that its building, 963 Queen Street West, is up for sale. Of course, this means the much-anticipated spring return of Oddfellows’ all-you-can-eat Sunday taco extravaganza is not to be.
Ed Ho pulls out of plans to open an Earth 2 restaurant in Mississauga
The 'Sauga continues: Mississauga will have to live without a Ho-McKenna restaurant—for now (Image: Seekdes, from the torontolife.com Flickr pool)
After many months of demolition and construction, and many dollars spent, restaurateur Ed Ho (of Globe Bistro and Earth) is walking away from his ambitious Earth 2 project in Mississauga. For now, Ho isn’t saying much, lest the lawyers become involved, but it seems he and his financiers could not see eye to eye, disagreeing on the direction of the project, and other deal-breaking details. “I can’t compromise to make a new partner happy,” Ho explained. “And I am not in this for the money. I left Bay Street for the love of this.”
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Start canning: world to run out of food around 2050
Preserves for preservation (Image: thebittenworld.com)
Here we were thinking that the coming century would herald nothing but flying cars, weird haircuts and sweet video games, but the reality sounds much more dismal. New environmental studies have predicted future food catastrophe. At the forefront is Julian Cribb, a distinguished science writer, who foresees Earth beginning to run out of food by 2050.
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La Palette shuttering its Kensington location this weekend
When Shamez Amlani muses about this coming Sunday, it’s not without a little sentimentality. Three days from now, the restaurant he co-owns in Kensington Market, La Palette, will shut its doors for good so that he and his team can concentrate on the Queen West location. Ten years ago, Amlani and his associates applied a meagre $18,000 to a grungy Chinese joint and turned it into an edgy French bistro. They never imagined that it would have taken off the way it did. “It’s a miracle,” Amlani tell us. “We shot at the moon, and we actually hit it.”
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Toronto Star confirms what we already know: A la Cart has been a total fiasco
A cartful of issues (Image: Anthony Easton)
When the city and provincial governments got together so that people could buy food that wasn’t a hot dog from street vendors, the program was supposed to be a big deal. George Smitherman, back then a cabinet minister at Queen’s Park, declared, “Goodbye to the sausage, hello to the samosa.”
Not so much, actually. The Toronto Star just ran a weekend series detailing how badly the city’s A la Cart program has failed. Of the eight vendors who got licences, only one is committed to being on the streets in 2011. The failures are numerous, including mismanagement and too much red tape, but the most face-palmingly bad decision seems to have been the carts themselves.
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Ten signs of the death of the Entertainment District
The canary in clubland: Circa closed earlier this year (Image: Divya Thakur)
The condo invasion is old news to all of Toronto. Except clubland. The point of packing dozens of nightclubs into one area was to contain the noise and stumbling Paris Hilton wannabes, hence the lack of pricey real estate in the Entertainment District. But, as the Toronto Star reports, only about 30 clubs are open for business today in the area between Richmond and Wellington around John Street, down from almost 90 five years ago. With city proposals to build more condos and other developments, the end of clubland as we know it is near. Here, 10 reasons why the fist-pumping hub is on its last legs.
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Buddha Dog gets put down
Auf Wiedersehen, weird weiners: Roncey loses its Dog (Image: Joey DeVilla)
Amidst all the G20 brouhaha, it was easy to forget that one Roncesvalles’s more creative fooderies, Buddha Dog, is calling it quits after three years. Fans of the tiny hot dog shop, which was recommended in our Roncesvalles Guide, can still get their fill at the Evergreen Brick Works farmers’ market on Saturdays or up at the Picton location. A post from the owners on their Web site says that they’re focusing on “building more rural locations and developing our Buddha Foodha at Home line of products.” We’re not sure what to make of the rural locations part, but selling bottles of their Indian butter and red pepper jelly sounds like a good business plan to us.
Weekend fire takes down Dundas West’s Musa
This room's on fire: Dundas West's Musa on Sunday, July 4 (Image: Aaron Leaf)
By the time we arrived at 847 Dundas Street West yesterday there was already a crowd of neighbours and passersby scanning the apocalyptic scene: 22 fire trucks, blocked streets and up to 100 firefighters scurrying around in the heat, pouring vast amounts of water onto what used to be Musa restaurant. Eventually the roof seemed to cave, sending the chimney plunging into the street and bricks flying everywhere.
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RIP, Le Gourmand: Toronto’s acclaimed cookiemonger goes out of business
The famous coffee and cookies at Le Gourmand (Image: Pema Hegan)
When the Le Gourmand at Yonge and Eglinton unexpectedly closed down in January, owner Milton Nunes remained optimistic, going so far as to speculate that the chain would be expanding in the near future. Now, with eviction notices posted at the Spadina-Richmond flagship, and the Yonge-Bloor food court locale closed, he’s telling us that the chain has gone out of business. “I was doing what I loved to do,” he says. “Sometimes you make a wrong move, and everything comes crashing down.”
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Markham votes to build over “best farmland in Canada”
It's not easy being green (in Markham) (Image: SorinNechita)
The town of Markham has spent much of the last six months debating a proposal that would have forbidden the development of farmland in its east end. Last night, the plan went down in flames as town councillors voted to side with a more traditional growth plan (read: tract housing and two-car garages).
Circa nightclub is officially dead, please fist-pump elsewhere
Halloween at Circa (Image: Divya Thakur)
Circa’s doors have been shut for a month, but today the Star is officially confirming that the John Street über-club has filed for bankruptcy.
A closed sign is posted on the club’s home page along with the message “Thank you for supporting us over the years”; Nelly Furtado’s “All Good Things (Come to an End)” plays in the background. The relationship between the “good things” and Circa remain unclear, although we’re pretty sure they are not referring to the nightclub’s $2.1 million in debt.
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The curse of 335 Yonge Street continues: wall collapses at Tatami Sushi
The corner of Yonge and Gould has to be the worst place in the city to set up shop. This afternoon, the brick wall above the relatively new Tatami Sushi restaurant collapsed, and now the entire area is closed off. Photos of the debris are already flooding the Internet, thanks to the fact that Ryerson University is right there. Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt.
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Bouches will no longer be amused after Amuse-Bouche closes on May 31
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The people behind Amuse-Bouche confirmed today what was already suggested by the giant For Lease signs on their walls. After five successful years, the west-end French bistro will be shutting its doors on May 31. “Knowing that our lease was up for renewal, we contemplated our options and finally decided it was time to move on and explore new ventures and opportunities,” reads the message sent out to VIP customers and signed by operators Jason Inniss, Sarah Lyons and Bertrand Alépée.
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