The market was changing long before Covid. Mark’s ethos has always been to appease the Peter Luger crowd, and frankly they’re aging out of the market. Even Fabbrica was considered a big step down for him. Funny story though; it was originally going to be an Italian resto run by Rob Gentile, until Rob realized he could make his own name in the biz).
I think part of the shift was to justify the cost. While it’s been busier, it’s never been a packed place, even at the best of times. You have a big kitchen, you use it.
Looks like Tokyo Smoke closed, the signage has been taken down.
Cannabis smokers lament that a cannabis retailer closed down, despite there being about 420 other cannabis retailers within fifteen minutes from this location by train.
Nearby Fire & Flower on Church street also disappeared.
There does not need to be that many cannabis retailers in a given area. No more than five per neighbourhood suffice. One closing down in a neighbourhood with a few dozen isn't a huge deal. Closing down a dozen would improve neighbourhood vitality while still giving cannabis users plenty of convenient access.
I think the cost of rent for a retail unit in the Yonge-Bloor area probably has more to do with a cannabis store closing than the number of cannabis stores in a certain area. Margins are pretty low on cannabis to begin with. Besides, how do you know how many cannabis stores (or any type of store) is too many for a given area? And why 5 per neighbourhood? Such a blanket statement does not take into account neighbourhood size and demographics. What about bars or restaurants? There's 5 pizza joints within 200 metres of where I live. There's no way anyone can eat that much pizza! And how do cannabis stores negatively affect neighbourhood vitality? If these businesses are doing well enough to stay open then there is clearly demand with customers travelling to/from the businesses and contributing to an active streetscape. If there are too many that a certain area can support and market saturation has been reached there will be closures much like any other type of business. If it's the lack of visibility into cannabis stores that's an issue, I'd still prefer that over nothing. Vacant storefronts provide zero vitality to the streetscape.
Funny part is, that store never even opened, apparently because they didn't do their research and picked a location too close to Church St Public School and couldn't get a licence.
Not really, that location was set-up for failure from the start. A basement, over priced food, with a very obscure street level presence that is overshadowed by a massive department store and homophobic fried chicken fast food.McEwans is gone. So sad
