Food court on Queen W.
Does anyone know what's to become of the stand alone food court on the north side of Queen near John street? It used to have a Ben and Jerry's and I was surprised to see that fail, now everything but a lonely ayce Chinese buffett is gone. The location seems good enough, I wonder what went wrong or if something else is in the cards for the site.
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It can't be due to a lack of business unless the sale of City gutted the lunch traffic. That place was always packed. But I noticed that the shops in there all closed down within a period of a few months. The first Sandwich Box was in there as well. Plus a burrito stand that was always packed.
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Sandwich Box
238 Queen St W, Toronto, ON M5V1Z7, CA -
num nums
Mar 16, 2010 08:52 PM
I've been wondering about this too. I don't have any current info, but this Spacing article from a few years ago provides good background info. The main thing is that it is actually city-owned, but with one of their famous 50 year lease arrangements with a private company.
It's a shame given the history of the site that something more chowish can't be done with the place. For example, Sandwich Box started in there. It would be cool if the place could act as a food incubator, kind of like how Caplansky's started inside the Monarch. The city should take it over and provide a space with very affordable rents so people can tryout interesting food business concepts.
Judging how the city has screwed up something more simple like food carts, I guess this is assuming way too much of the city's abilities/creativity.
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re: num nums
As soon as you said "city owned" my mind immediately jumped to those pitiful new food carts we'll be seeing again shortly. I wondered how Ben and Jerry's could fail in a location so busy with pedestrian traffic and that explains it. Too bad the space can't be bought, rather than leased from the city as they WILL find a way to screw it up.
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