After years of rumours that the 30-year-old restaurant would be moving, Scaramouche has let it be known that it’s staying put. After a long and contentious battle, restaurant owners and landlords agreed to extend the lease at 1 Benvenuto Place for six more years. “Friends and clients have been asking us where Scaramouche will move, so I’m pleased to finally report that we’re staying where we are,” says executive chef Keith Froggett.
Posts Tagged ‘rumours’
Pretty Young Things
The other, other Boleyn girl: Rachel McAdams is morphing into Scar-Jo
McAdams at TIFF back in 2007 (Image: Attit Patel)
Rachel McAdams has been Toronto’s most promising talent for years, but despite starring in some pretty good movies and making high-profile pals—hell, she and her ex-beau earned their own amalgamated nickname, McGosling—Hollywood doesn’t quite know what to do with the girl. And so, after years of trying to carve out her own niche, the Notebook beauty has reverted to a less original but well-proven Plan B. Or, perhaps better put, a Plan S, as in the ultimate sexspian Scarlett Johansson. How McAdams has been pulling pages from the Scar-Jo playbook after the jump.
Step 1: Land a Vogue cover Read the rest of this entry »
Johansson earned Vogue’s top honour in April 2007; McAdams scored the coveted cover girl spot in the January 2010 issue. Johansson looked like Marilyn Monroe; McAdams more closely resembled one of the gals from Designing Women. But hey, it’s the thought (i.e., the approval of Anna Wintour) that counts.
Opening
Two more Whole Foods outlets are coming to Toronto
(Photo by Paul Heaberlin)
Organic über-market Whole Foods is continuing its march toward world domination by doubling its number of GTA stores. The Post reports that the two new locations, which will be the same size as the downtown outlet, will open at the Hullmark Centre near Yonge and Sheppard (right where the rumours dictated) in 2013 and at Square One next year. The suburbanization of Whole Foods comes after the company discovered that many of its Yorkville customers presently drive in from the city’s fringes. The openings are in contrast with the strategies of such supermarkets as Metro, Loblaws, Longo’s and Sobey’s, which are focusing on downtown expansions. Of course, Whole Foods has never been afraid to do things a little differently: the CEO recently announced that the store would base its employee discounts on workers’ BMI indexes.
• Whole Foods to double its GTA footprint [National Post]
• Whole Foods to give greater employee discounts to workers with lower BMI, cholesterol [New York Post]
Restauran-TO
Greg Couillard’s Spice Room may be closed for good among accusations of bounced cheques, serving without a liquor licence and thousands in unpaid wages
Closed for now or forever? The entrance to the Spice Room is presently blocked (Photo by Karon Liu)
It seems as though every restaurant nightmare is presently playing out in the basement of Hazelton Lanes, where Greg Couillard’s Spice Room and Chutney Bar sits abandoned behind a barrier of bar stools and a sign that reads “Restaurant Closed.” At Manyata, the restaurant’s courtyard café, dusty Christmas decorations have been pushed to the corner, and exposed wires hang from the ceiling like an abandoned renovation project. “Since David Nganga took over, it’s been a shit show,” says one Spice Room–Manyata server. “I’m madder than hell.”
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Restauran-TO
Mövenpick makes its Toronto comeback
Staffers man the salad station at Richtree (Photo by Rupert Taylor-Price)
Mövenpick Marché, the European-style self-serve restaurant, is returning to Toronto on January 25 after a six-year absence caused by a nasty legal dispute with franchisee Jorg Reichert. The company is taking back the space it once held in Brookfield Place (formerly BCE Place) from current tenant Richtree Market, and Mövenpick’s parent company intends to open at least 10 locations in the GTA under various names. Richtree’s closure will not affect the other locations.
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Shop Talk
Pier 1 to close Yonge Street location
The soon-to-close Pier 1 (Photo from Google Street View)
Pier 1 Imports at Yonge and Shuter will close its doors on March 11, with the teensy Beach store at 1986 Queen Street East left to serve the downtown core. The Yonge and Shuter location is in a state of disarray as the last items sell, most on deep discount, like Christmas decorations on sale for 75 per cent off, home furnishings 30 per cent off previously discounted prices, and, puzzlingly, elaborate Harlequin masks for $75 to $85.
Reasons abound for the closure, but Pier 1 PR rep Harriet Burrow told us the company looks at stores on a case-by-case basis, and though she could not confirm rent prices, she did tell us that rent is a factor in store closures. The location also lacks convenient parking for shoppers to load furniture into their cars, unlike the bustling store at Eglinton and Laird.
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Restauran-TO
Jamieson Kerr talks about selling Crush and opening a second Queen and Beaver-esque pub
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After eight years as owner and operator of Crush Wine Bar, Jamieson Kerr has decided to sell the once-French, now-British King West bistro in order to focus on his growing family and the Queen and Beaver—his Elm Street gastropub that opened last spring. “I’ve been spending six nights a week at Crush, and I felt it was time to give a bit of time back to my family,” Kerr tells us. “A great offer came my way, to be honest. We all know that the economy was tough on large fine-dining restaurants, and I managed to hold my own, but when this offer came along, it was worth looking at.”
Urban Decoder
I heard that kids are getting drunk on hand sanitizer at school? Is it true, and if so, what’s the TDSB doing about it?
Rumours of kids getting hopped up on antibacterial gel recently stoked a mini–media storm. Thankfully, the TDSB hasn’t received any reports of sanitizer sipping. However, it’s not an unwarranted concern. According to the laws of duh, if it has alcohol in it, teens will imbibe it—why bother raiding the liquor cabinet when a swig of 120-proof “booze ooze,” as the kids are calling it, will get the job done quicker? One good reason is the vile taste. Purell, the TDSB’s brand of choice, contains a bittering agent to make it unpalatable—imagine a dish soap and vodka cocktail (with a twist if it’s lemon scented). But teens rarely let flavour get in the way of some good, er, clean fun. To prevent furtive nipping, the TDSB distributes bottles no bigger than 350 millilitres and recommends teachers keep them at their desks. Still, it doesn’t take much to get soused—a disconcerting notion, given that the stuff has become as ubiquitous as pompoms at a pep rally.
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