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The outside of the old City Grill location at the Eaton Centre is being boarded up. Considering no work appears to be under way at the Dundas St. space that was rumoured to become a Joey's, I wonder if they decided to take over the much more interesting City Grill space.
 
Belljar Cafe is opening this (Good) Friday, 2nd April 2010, a funky cafe/coffee shop on that dreary stretch of Dundas--2072 Dundas St West @Howard Park. Clearly the Feather Factory Lofts and Roncevalles lofts are having an impact on this formerly crappy strip. Good to see! Review here: http://www.torontolife.com/daily/da...nt-coffee-shops-continue-citywide-takeover/3/ and a much better review here: http://www.martiniboys.com/Toronto/The-Belljar-Cafe-review.html

edit: Looks like it's named after the band the owner, Geoff McPeek, is currently a member of-- The Belle Jars.

[video=youtube;73K7viZKFno]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73K7viZKFno[/video]
 
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1 April 2010 update: The Bloordale Pantry is getting closer to opening, Bloor @Lansdowne between the Coffee Time and Ali Baba's.

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It used to be a really cool old school diner, The Dale. Blansdowne is blowing up bigtime, with this place, Mercer Union, a few more galleries, HAUS vintage, 69 Vintage, Holy Oak, Calico, 3 Speed and more!
 
I will never forgive them for destroying the amazing storefront The Dale used to feature. That was one of the better neon signs in the city. Their sin is compounded by the replacement of said storefront with the façade equivalent of Wonder Bread.

I walked through Blossington/Blansdowne yesterday - you're right, there's tons of new stuff. 69 Vintage is better in theory than practice, but it's still good to see. And the new vintage furniture place ("Ping Pong", I think it's called) had some great stuff and the girl working there was super nice. I just hope the neighbourhood doesn't change too too much. Right now it's in that good part of gentrification where there's a balance between new and old. (Mostly I don't want Vena's and South Indian Dosa Mahal to get pushed out - those places are delicious.)
 
New Firkin on King West

Renovating the space now, on the south side of king, just west of Spadina right beside Brassai - Firkin on King.
S'Bus
 
4 April 2010 retail update:

Belljar Cafe @Dundas St W&Howard Park looks hot:

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Motel bar beside Salvador Darling in Parkdale opened last night, I was too tired from my 13 mile walk to check out the opening....

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Old-school Parkdale fave of mine, Cattlemen's Meat Market (can't say I've shopped here though) had windows smashed, amongst other Parkdale businesses, in past few days.

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(Not so) Freshwood Grill's Roncevalles location has closed, thank god!

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Savoy, a new restaurant/pub near the Midpoint on the Drake strip has just opened, menu looks rather derivative. Boring.

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^^^ That place actually advertises how cheap their pabst is on the sign out front?

Why not have a sign saying "park your fixed-gear bikes here" as well? Lame.
 
Apparently Jason George on Front Street East (just east of Jarvis) are expanding into the space next door - presumably the unit further east that was Cafe Asia (yet another Restaurant Makeover victim!)
 
We loved the old Dale too! Unfortunatly by the time we took over, the landlords had already renovated the store front with a grant from the city. We begged them to keep the neon sign and the original Dale sign that was under the neon sign for us but they had already gotten rid of them. However, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the interior. We've spent a lot of time restoring the old school diner feel to keep the character of Dale.
 
thebloordalepantry said:
We loved the old Dale too! Unfortunatly by the time we took over, the landlords had already renovated the store front with a grant from the city. We begged them to keep the neon sign and the original Dale sign that was under the neon sign for us but they had already gotten rid of them. However, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the interior. We've spent a lot of time restoring the old school diner feel to keep the character of Dale.
Click to expand...

Thank you so much for taking the time to register & reply! I will check out the interior once you're open.

Also! A sincere apology for my misdirected ire. (As soon as I hit "post" I started thinking I was intemperate.) I just get so annoyed when things like that happen. Basically, I turn into Aaron Draplin in this video (which I recommend, btw, to anyone who isn't put off by liberal use of the f-word). All these amazing chunks of visual culture, and they just get tossed on a skip because they're commercial artifacts, and people assume that commercial artifacts have no value but "use value", and aesthetics don't enter into it.

Sorry. Threadjack over!
 
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Urbandreamer, thanks for the tip on Waxy's. I am headed to Hamilton this weekend for a basketball tourney and I will have to drag the the 16 year old basketball players there for lunch (with the hope that it will not slow down their afternoon games too much).
 
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