Went to Vaughan Mills today. Bready and Honestly Good are replacing the closed Aroma Espresso Bar and Blaze Pizza, respectively. Didn't see any construction going on around the empty Designer Depot space. Pickle Barrel was still bustling with boomers as always.

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2026/02/09/judge-blocks-department-store-from-moving-into-former-hbc-space-at-yorkdale-mall/ A judge has blocked RioCan from letting Ailes set up shop at the former Bay lease at Yorkdale, for the exact reasons your may think. RioCan has until August to find a new...

Oh man, I totally forgot about that. That makes a lot of sense as well as that won't need mall access. Pickle Barrel may indeed be toast then. Still one of my favorite malls though....

Only permit I can see online in Vaughan Mills is for a Bready cafe, but I have no idea where that would be in the mall. EDIT: Actually the map is extremely unusable, so there's more than one permit open... I can't find anything about Olive Garden thus far, but I did see something about Honestly...

I'm not surprised they're closing that joint, unfortunately. They didn't bother renovating the Alliance Cinemas sign for years.

I can't find anything concrete about that Pickle Barrel closing, other than an offhand Reddit comment. I'm a little skeptical about the timing, too. They would have to renovate the entire restaurant inside and out if they wanted to transform it into an Olive Garden for the summer of this year...

Mastermind comes to mind... Toys R Us up here is another funny story. That man Doug Putman constantly bites off more than he could chew time and time again.

Yeah could be those as well. Upper Canada could use one for sure.

Interesting. Sherway Gardens Saks Fifth? Bramalea City Centre? Scarborough?

https://archive.ph/fJYPe Not about Simon's. It's about Ailes. They are, in addition to the planned Yorkdale lease, getting two Quebec leases. They are technically a Montreal department store. Just go to Winners....

To toss my hat into the ring, I agree with this sentiment. I will add that I think this is more on CF than Aaniin when it comes to the aesthetics of the store- other pop-ups retained fixtures, but it seems like CF handed them a gutted lease and they probably didn't have the funds to make it look...

Say what you want about luxury retail as a whole but at least it's different!

Marshalls and Petsmart are already both located off North Queen and Index in the northern SmartCentres. I'm not sure they would want to move into Yorkdale, especially considering they might not fit with the mall's vision.

Oooh, where would I be able to find those plans? Regardless of Ford involvement it really wouldn't be a bad idea. It would give people access to a lot of retail, and future condo developments at Sherway as well.

I was going to mention that a Line 2 extension or an "Etobicoke" line would be pretty cool, ending at Sherway Gardens or hitting it along the way. Just not sure how feasible it is. I would imagine it would take up the Saks lease but I don't wanna get too excited at the thought!