No. 5
The recession is officially over
How young entrepreneurs defied the gloomy times and opened up shop.
—Carley Fortune
Mjölk2959 Dundas St. W., 416-551-9853
Opened: December 2009
First sale: Handverk shaving kit, $98
John Baker and Juli Daoust turned a hobby blog about modern design into a Scandinavian decor shop. To do it, the couple sold their Annex home and bought a three-storey storefront and apartment building in the Junction (they live above the shop in a two-bedroom and rent out the third floor). They went well over their $50,000 budget outfitting the store with teak shelving and sculptural glass panels, but the resulting quirky, airy room—filled with birch dining chairs, woollens from Iceland and cast iron pots from Finland—was worth it.
Parts and Labour1566 Queen St. W., 416-588-7750
Opened: June 2010
First sale: Not available at press time
Richard Lambert and Jesse Girard, the owners of the Queen West club The Social, and Brian Richer and Kei Ng, of communal dining restaurant Oddfellows, wanted to open the sort of grown-up resto-bar and concert space that 30-somethings (like them) would want to hang out in. They bought a Parkdale hardware store for $700,000, then undertook $800,000 in renos—digging up the basement and adding a massive rooftop garden with rainwater irrigation. Its opening solidified the hipster-ification of a formerly forlorn strip.
Of Swallows, Their Deeds, and The Winter Below283 College St., upper floors, 416-534-5173
Opened: April 2010
First sale: Paradise Lost hardcover, $10
Jason Rovito was disturbed by last year’s wave of bookstore closures. “It was like watching your natural habitat disappear,” he says. He leased the second and third floors of a 140-year-old building, and with the help of his handy dad “and a lot of time at auctions picking up Persian rugs,” he was able to open his own scholarly bookstore with a minuscule investment. Rovito also rents out office space (the art journal Public uses it twice a week for $300 a month) and a seminar room, and in the process ensures himself a steady supply of customers.
Serpentine18 Hazelton Ave., 416-513-1818
Opened: August 2009
First sale: Scott Kay ring, $305
Paul Mailing was working as a pharmaceutical sales rep when he met Stephen George, a buyer at a men’s fashion store. They became friends and, after Mailing quit the corporate world, agreed to open a shop selling $900 Rick Owens jean jackets and biker-chic bling. They leased a former Hugo Boss store in Yorkville and spent two months and $500,000 renovating and collecting stock. They’ve been working seven days a week since. “Everyone opens when the economy is good,” Mailing says, “but it takes a lot of balls to do it when it’s not.”
Can someone please clarify what they mean by 3 gay ghettos? Because at the moment all I can think of is ill-minded meanings…
June 16, 2010 at 5:49 am | by HmmmI love the photos of the stores mentioned in # 5, but why are the accompanying descriptions squeezed into long skinny columns? I had one heck of a time trying to read them!
June 16, 2010 at 9:05 am | by GWWot – only fifty!
” … smart(??), interesting(hmm..) people move here every day (as refugees, no doubt) , attracted to a city that’s challenging(no transport link from YYZ to downtown) and gritty(i.e. dirty) and exciting(I couldn’t keep my eyes open) and (self)indulgent …
I laughed my socks off!
More please!
June 16, 2010 at 10:17 am | by arjaYou cannot possibly be serious with this statement:
“If Torontonians have one shared flaw, it’s that we’re pathologically reluctant to acknowledge our greatness.”
The absolute LAST thing Torontonians need is to be overly-proud of their city. What is so desperately needed is a dose of humility. This city has so many problems and settles for so much mediocrity. Take off the rose-coloured glasses and get to work on addressing them. In no particular order: transportation is abysmal, concessions to unions and feckless city hall impede progress in labour relations and raise costs for everyone, ghettoization of immigrants and minorities do not a multicultural city make no matter how warm and fuzzy it might make you feel just looking at statistics, public schools are dilapidated and graduate half their students in many areas, affordable housing is out of reach for many leading to sprawl, development is ill-planned with little thought to strain on existing infrastructure (though the city will take the tax money), what development there is is incremental at best with little vision for what makes great cities great, roads and other infrastructure is not maintained or even kept clean, and on and on. Like the fans in the city who cheer for losing sports teams year after year after year (after year), Toronto continues to pat itself on the back and sit smugly doing nothing.
This article just panders to this mentality and reinforces it. I’d applaud Toronto Life if it had the guts to run a story which opened with, “If Torontonians have one shared flaw, it’s that we’re pathologically reluctant to acknowledge our flaws and weaknesses. Now, more than ever, we have reasons to be concerned. Here are 50 concrete things we can do to help make the city the world-class place we so desperately desire it to be.”
June 16, 2010 at 12:23 pm | by IgnatzNice Ignatz. I’ll have to assume you and anyone else who batters Toronto has never been anywhere else. There are lots of things to moan about if this is your goal but this city is second best at everything and that’s pretty damn good. Get yourself a few plane tickets and a few visas and go find out what real problems are.
June 16, 2010 at 9:11 pm | by RyanI’m sorry, but a a few ridiculously rich kids in their 20s opening up a shop selling $3000 kitchen tables and $300 teapots isn’t a big draw for most people
June 16, 2010 at 9:17 pm | by readerHear, hear, Ryan. Toronto-bashing is so ignorant and boring I can’t muster the will to fight it anymore. You can’t appreciate it around here? Whatever, I won’t let it affect my enjoyment in watching this old provincial backwater gradually get more interesting.
June 16, 2010 at 10:14 pm | by AdamIgnatz wasn’t doing “ignorant Toronto-bashing”
He was pointing out some serious problems in our city that share the same space with this list of 50 great things.
The fact that you guys can’t seem to wrap your head around the fact that there can simultaneously be major issues that need addressing, yet redeeming qualities that make this city great, is illustrative of a large chunk of Toronto’s population.
And unfortunately, that’s why these problems linger and why not many want to deal with them – because some of us feel that acknowledging them in an effort to fix them constitutes “ignorant Toronto bashing”
June 17, 2010 at 1:16 am | by JBYes, actually, Ignatz was Toronto bashing. Speaking as a non-Canadian expat, Toronto is a great city doing interesting things, and when compared to other Canadian cities (Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal et al) there is a lot to be proud of.
Unfortunately, the fact is when people think of Canada, for some reason Toronto doesn’t come up on their list of ‘cool’ cities. Montreal and Vancouver usually win out. Meanwhile, Vancouver is one large crack haven, complete with out of control prostitution and gang violence, while Montreal is slowly decaying, losing a building at roughly the same rate that Toronto builds one.
There are so many interesting things going down across the Tdot, fantastic architecture, cool underground clubs, boutique art galleries and cinemas, etc etc, and yet Toronto is for some reason always viewed as grey, corporate and boring.
Two cheers for Toronto Life, this was a great showcase. I’d give three but no publication ever really deserves three.
June 17, 2010 at 3:05 am | by AlexI do wish those attempting to counter criticism of Toronto would do a better job of it.
The assumption that any criticism comes from a source that “has never been anywhere else” is positively witless; while describing Toronto as an “old provincial backwater” and admitting that it is “always viewed as grey, corporate and boring” when mounting a (supposedly) spirited defence is akin to shooting oneself in the foot.
About the best that can be said of this is that it is all very Canadian.
June 17, 2010 at 8:28 am | by MikeOk, I am one who moved INTO this city from the burbs recently looking forward to the art and theatre, the colour,the hustle of city life when others were moving out. I bought into a mosy modestly priced townsuite. I love being able to hop on transit and be at Roy Thompson Hall in minutes. My husband loves being able to walk to work instead of spending 3 hrs a day on the GO train. BUT the city has changed in many ways that are not desireable – I am terrified to walk on streets where cyclists pay no heed, where I fight with taxis and trucks and I am compulsive about using the crosswalks. I hate the dirt and filth in the subway, people spitting on the sidewalks, dog walkers who don’t pick up. (I love dogs, have a big dog and always pick up – why don’t people understand the little dogs’ poo also needs to be collected?) I also hate being knocked over on the sidewalk by people who walk 3 abreast and have no sense of sharing space – I am learning to be aggressive about protecting my little bit as I walk. I also resent those who cross through my townsuites’ property riding bikes & scooters on the grass, stealing flowers out of planters, peeing on the walls – these are not always the drug users and trouble makers of the neighbourhood, but are also the home owners and renters who take for granted that in a city, everything is up for grabs. So all of the writers are RIGHT – this city has wonderful qualities but its citizens need to pluck up their courage and admit that we need to be more considerate of both humans and structures that share this space. It isn’t “all about me!”
June 17, 2010 at 10:23 am | by SusanHonestly Ignatz, whats your problem? If you have ever picked up a Canadian newspaper in your life, you would know that they go on and on about how Toronto is a dilapidated hell-hole, on the verge of becoming the next Detroit. Torontonians hear plenty about the problems their city faces, so why you feel the need to bring them up when you see anything positive mentioned about the city is beyond me. Toronto has issues, everyone is well aware of that, but are we not allowed to appreciate all the good things this city has?
June 17, 2010 at 10:26 am | by AdamWell, I don’t want to get into tit-for-tat with opposing views. I’m glad to see some discussion. The only thing I’d add is that I live in Toronto, but have lived in other Canadian cities and other countries as well. It’s precisely this reason that the city frustrates me, because I’ve seen how other places do things (better and worse). I disagree that going out in the world will make you realize how great Toronto is – I think the world has a lot to teach Toronto about how things could be addressed and improved, but I don’t think people here want to hear it, think about it or try to do it most of the time. Sorry to hear you’re frustrated by the Toronto-bashing; I’m frustrated at the lack of vision and the acceptance of mediocrity in many areas of civic life here.
From my perspective, it is the insular nature of Toronto and Torontonians that’s half the problem. Yes, there are those 50 great things and many more here. But there are many other great things in other cities and countries that we could learn from ourselves. I just think TL gave us a soft-underhand pitch when they could have challenged us a bit (but what sells, sells).
(OK, maybe the sports team thing was a little low…)
June 17, 2010 at 3:44 pm | by IgnatzI was born and raised in Toronto. I live here and work downtown. I’ve seen quite a few other cities in the world, some great, some not so great, and some American ones too. Allow me to make a correction, Toronto is not second-best at anything. Toronto is nowhere near being second-best. It has some points of interest, great places to eat, and a few social and cultural draw points, aside from this it’s wholly inadequate.
June 17, 2010 at 3:56 pm | by Ezeowow mike, thanks for pointing out the “inner contradictions” of my post. for my part, i wish people attempting to counter the counter criticism of Toronto would do a better job of it. about the best that can be said of this is, eh?
June 17, 2010 at 10:46 pm | by Alex