FAC33
Active Member
There's also some upscale scores in the PATH, particularly in Royal Bank Plaza (Brooks Brothers) and FCP (Harry Rosen, several higher-end women's stores).
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There's also some upscale scores in the PATH, particularly in Royal Bank Plaza (Brooks Brothers) and FCP (Harry Rosen, several higher-end women's stores).
prosperegal
Senior Member
Because it doesn't belong on Bloor, just east of Avenue Road. Looks a little...off. It's almost like throwing someone wearing a t-shirt and cargo pants in the middle of a black tie gala. Should be a little closer to Yonge, I think.
Kingsway
Active Member
Canadians love value. This is why chains like Winners thrive and department stores like the Bay and Sears pale in comparison to Macy's, L&T, etc in the US. Maybe also why Discount Grocery is big here unlike the rest of N America...there also seems to be no shame for the typical Canadian to be in a discount store, or wrap their $8 Joe Fresh along side a jacket purchased at Holts.
I am not saying Canadians are cheap...we just tend to be more conservative money spenders than the rest of the world....I guess our rich aren't as rich and poor aren't as poor.
I am not saying Canadians are cheap...we just tend to be more conservative money spenders than the rest of the world....I guess our rich aren't as rich and poor aren't as poor.
G
gabe
Guest
Generally items such as clothing, food, electronics, gadgets are more expensive in Canada than in the states. Marshall and Target are going to do very very well in Canada. Look how successful Wal Mart has been, they keep adding more stores and expanding stores.
Tewder
Senior Member
Retail chains from around the world are clamouring for position in Toronto. It is one of the highest performing markets in North America for retail which is all the more astounding given the recent economic climate. To call the Toronto retail landscape 'down market' is false. The Bay is upgrading itself in anticipation of department store competition that is soon to come. Bloor Street offers among the most expensive per-square-foot retail real estate in North America. Yorkdale is one of the highest performing shopping malls in the world... and all of this given relatively inexistent supply chain networks in Canada, smaller markets, and across-the-board higher retail costs in Canada than in the US for example where the same item will typically cost a quarter to half more north of the border than south.
Look at how many Winners stores there are in the greater downtown area....like ten??? Even Scotia Plaza, the second largest office tower complex in Canada has a Winners (it used to Harry Rosen) at its base! That is very unimpressive.
Other cities have their version of Winner's. These chains are considered 'cheap chic' in certain circles which would surprise you.
officedweller
Senior Member
The restaurant deal will give them a good presence across the country
i.e. O+B has no presence in Vancouver, other than recognition from City TV's CityLine.
(although Vancouver's Bay has its restaurant all the way up on the 6th Floor)
i.e. O+B has no presence in Vancouver, other than recognition from City TV's CityLine.
(although Vancouver's Bay has its restaurant all the way up on the 6th Floor)
pw20
Active Member
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&u...ocal_result&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CBMQnwIwAA
here is Filene's Basement right on Newbury street, kitty corner to Cole Haan, Boston. Across the street from Polo Ralph Lauren.
As with Winner's Bloor Street Filene's offers a large piece of square footage that would not be so attractive to other retailers - both of little on-street presence.
adma
Superstar
Don't forget, too, Century 21 in NYC...
prosperegal
Senior Member
Century 21 is not on Fifth Avenue though.
Skeezix
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This piece answers some of the questions that were raised after the earlier announcement about the restaurants: Great Cooks (on the 8th floor) will remain, Arcadian Court (once renovated) will no longer be open for lunch, the new restaurant at ground level at Queen and Bay will be 4000 sq. ft.
=====
Change is in the air at the Bay
Peter Kuitenbrouwer February 14, 2011 – 9:02 am
National Post
Charles Houston, who is 80, ate fish & chips — $7.62 when you factor in his 10% senior’s discount — with silverware off a china plate, washed down with a glass of ice water, on Wednesday at the Cafe Bon Appetit, formerly known as the City View Cafe, on the eighth floor of the Hudson’s Bay Company store at Bay and Queen streets.
Beside him on the creamcoloured formica table lay his raccoon-fur hat, made in Canada, purchased downstairs in the Bay’s hat department. He read the newspaper and enjoyed the afternoon light filtering in from plate-glass windows, which look north and offer a remarkable roof-line view of the Richardsonian Romanesque pile, in red sandstone, that is Old City Hall.
“I think people of all ages like this cafeteria,” said Mr. Houston, who has come here since he moved from Montreal, in 1960. “On weekends I see young people with their children, and of course it’s very popular when they have parades, so a lot of people will be sorry to see this place close down.
“Being up like this, you get a feeling that you are away from the hurly-burly and the cut and thrust of the street.”
Change is coming to the Bay. Oliver & Bonacini, the restaurant company that now employs 900 people, mainly in Toronto, has signed a deal, in partnership with Compass Group Canada (a U.S.-based multinational whose clients range from prisons to the White House) to supply food to 24 Bay stores across Canada. The project starts April 1. The plan involves closing two of the Bay’s three eighth-floor eateries (the cafe and the Arcadian Court) to the lunch
crowd, though Great Chefs on 8, whose windows face west, will remain open.
As a replacement, Oliver & Bonacini plans a 4,000-square-foot cafe on the ground level of the Bay, on the corner of Queen and Bay streets, replacing the Timothy’s that is there now. The cafe will serve light meals, takeout, coffee, and breakfast, lunch and dinner.
“We are going to be putting together the strongest culinary team that I have ever assembled,” Peter Oliver, co-owner of the company with Michael Bonacini, told me yesterday, when we met at the Toronto Board of Trade, where his company provides the food.
“There’s an art to making a sandwich. I want people to say, ‘Look at the quality of those sandwiches.’ And we want to offer it at a reasonable price, $7 or $8.”
The Robert Simpson Company Ltd. opened the Arcadian Court in 1929. An ad from the period hanging on the wall notes, “its brillliant modern originality is expressed in the decorated columns, the mezzanine cornices and the iron ballustrades, crafted in Modern French fashion.” Upstairs was The Grill, “A place for men to dine … in club-like, masculine surroundings they may enjoy a business chat, good food and a smoke.”
Mr. Oliver, who began his career in Toronto by opening Oliver’s Old-Fashioned Bakery, on Yonge Street north of Eglinton, in 1978, said the Arcadian Court and the cafe to its north will become a “state-of-the-art event centre, for business events, weddings and parties. (O & B has 12 weddings booked this summer at the Board of Trade.)
“You’ve gotta let your imagination run wild,” he said Wednesday, standing in the Arcadian Court, a space with a three-storey, vaulted ceiling, for which he plans a $4-million renovation “to make it more the way it was before.
“You could do a party here with Texas rockabilly music and line dancing. You could have the Toronto Symphony. You could have an Elvis revival.”
But you will no longer be able to do lunch.
“Whether we like it or not, the world is changing,” Mr. Oliver said. “We can’t sit there like Canute and expect the tide to go the other way.” He said that in contrast to Winnipeg, where locals are up in arms about the disappearance of the Bay’s Paddle Room restaurant, the reaction in Toronto has been muted. “There has been no uproar or backlash here. I don’t believe that cafeteria is the kind of landmark that it could have been.”
He is excited by the opportunities of the spot. “If you look at the Bay, that sucker fills an entire city block,” he said. “We will be baking in that location. We will be making chocolate. We will have our own ice cream.” And more, he promises, adding with a twinkle in his eye, “the whole thing is a work in progress.”
=====
Change is in the air at the Bay
Peter Kuitenbrouwer February 14, 2011 – 9:02 am
National Post
Charles Houston, who is 80, ate fish & chips — $7.62 when you factor in his 10% senior’s discount — with silverware off a china plate, washed down with a glass of ice water, on Wednesday at the Cafe Bon Appetit, formerly known as the City View Cafe, on the eighth floor of the Hudson’s Bay Company store at Bay and Queen streets.
Beside him on the creamcoloured formica table lay his raccoon-fur hat, made in Canada, purchased downstairs in the Bay’s hat department. He read the newspaper and enjoyed the afternoon light filtering in from plate-glass windows, which look north and offer a remarkable roof-line view of the Richardsonian Romanesque pile, in red sandstone, that is Old City Hall.
“I think people of all ages like this cafeteria,” said Mr. Houston, who has come here since he moved from Montreal, in 1960. “On weekends I see young people with their children, and of course it’s very popular when they have parades, so a lot of people will be sorry to see this place close down.
“Being up like this, you get a feeling that you are away from the hurly-burly and the cut and thrust of the street.”
Change is coming to the Bay. Oliver & Bonacini, the restaurant company that now employs 900 people, mainly in Toronto, has signed a deal, in partnership with Compass Group Canada (a U.S.-based multinational whose clients range from prisons to the White House) to supply food to 24 Bay stores across Canada. The project starts April 1. The plan involves closing two of the Bay’s three eighth-floor eateries (the cafe and the Arcadian Court) to the lunch
crowd, though Great Chefs on 8, whose windows face west, will remain open.
As a replacement, Oliver & Bonacini plans a 4,000-square-foot cafe on the ground level of the Bay, on the corner of Queen and Bay streets, replacing the Timothy’s that is there now. The cafe will serve light meals, takeout, coffee, and breakfast, lunch and dinner.
“We are going to be putting together the strongest culinary team that I have ever assembled,” Peter Oliver, co-owner of the company with Michael Bonacini, told me yesterday, when we met at the Toronto Board of Trade, where his company provides the food.
“There’s an art to making a sandwich. I want people to say, ‘Look at the quality of those sandwiches.’ And we want to offer it at a reasonable price, $7 or $8.”
The Robert Simpson Company Ltd. opened the Arcadian Court in 1929. An ad from the period hanging on the wall notes, “its brillliant modern originality is expressed in the decorated columns, the mezzanine cornices and the iron ballustrades, crafted in Modern French fashion.” Upstairs was The Grill, “A place for men to dine … in club-like, masculine surroundings they may enjoy a business chat, good food and a smoke.”
Mr. Oliver, who began his career in Toronto by opening Oliver’s Old-Fashioned Bakery, on Yonge Street north of Eglinton, in 1978, said the Arcadian Court and the cafe to its north will become a “state-of-the-art event centre, for business events, weddings and parties. (O & B has 12 weddings booked this summer at the Board of Trade.)
“You’ve gotta let your imagination run wild,” he said Wednesday, standing in the Arcadian Court, a space with a three-storey, vaulted ceiling, for which he plans a $4-million renovation “to make it more the way it was before.
“You could do a party here with Texas rockabilly music and line dancing. You could have the Toronto Symphony. You could have an Elvis revival.”
But you will no longer be able to do lunch.
“Whether we like it or not, the world is changing,” Mr. Oliver said. “We can’t sit there like Canute and expect the tide to go the other way.” He said that in contrast to Winnipeg, where locals are up in arms about the disappearance of the Bay’s Paddle Room restaurant, the reaction in Toronto has been muted. “There has been no uproar or backlash here. I don’t believe that cafeteria is the kind of landmark that it could have been.”
He is excited by the opportunities of the spot. “If you look at the Bay, that sucker fills an entire city block,” he said. “We will be baking in that location. We will be making chocolate. We will have our own ice cream.” And more, he promises, adding with a twinkle in his eye, “the whole thing is a work in progress.”
Skeezix
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Here is another short piece from the National Post, about the trend by department stores and other retailers to focus on their in-store dining experience. It's a bit odd, though, that Amy Rosen makes it sound like it's some new trend (although there may be a new focus on it); here in Toronto alone, Lady Eaton was doing this sort of thing with the Georgian Room and the Round Room in the 1920s and 1930s. Plus ça change . . .
====
A string of pearls with your latte?
Amy Rosen, 12 Fenruary 2011
National Post
Forget about boring old food court fodder like chicken balls and curly fries. If we’re willing to drop two grand in a swank lifestyle store, we should be able do better than a $4 meal deal. And now, thanks to a slew of new in-store dining options, we can have wood oven-roasted Maine lobster, Champagne — and proper service — to go along with our Italian hand-tooled leather purses.
Just last week, The Hudson’s Bay Company announced it is planning to revamp its in-store eateries across the country, bringing in trendy restaurateurs Oliver & Bonacini to spiff up such dining hotspots as Winnipeg’s Paddlewheel Restaurant. The Winnipeg Free Press noted that local institution’s Orange Jell-O was memorialized in Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg — probably not the cachet Bay CEO Bonnie Brooks is after.
But the move toward higher-end in-store eating is already well underway. Last December, Birks in Montreal opened an in-store café in its grand circa 1902 building. ABC Carpet and Home in Manhattan launched the Jean-Georges-helmed ABC Kitchen in 2010, and Todd English’s Food Hall is now open in the new Shops at the Plaza Hotel.
In the Plaza’s freshly renovated Grand Concourse, as well as in the lobby and on the fourth floor, there’s a sparkling collection of highfalutin shops and services, most of which are European name brands I’ve never heard of, such as Caudalie, Krigler and Morgenthal Frederics. But what I do know is food, and I found myself instantly smitten with the new Plaza Food Hall.
A pretty and compact space, you can have handmade dumplings at one bar, sidle over to the next counter for a whole grilled branzino or a few oysters on the half shell at Ocean Grill & Oyster Bar, or mosey across the room for Todd English’s signature flatbreads, including a most delicious fig and prosciutto with gorgonzola, all of which are served hot from the oven on wooden paddles.
Still, you’ve got to wonder, is all of this dining and quaffing getting in the way of power shopping?
“I love the trend of in-store dining,” says Lisa Tant, editor-in-chief of Flare. “Whenever I’m in serious shopping mode, I don’t want anything to distract me from the task at hand. I don’t have a lot of time, so dining in my favourite stores — Harvey Nichols, Printemps and Holt Renfrew [where, incidentally, she loves the salads] — completes the experience and saves hassle.” Tant also finds that it’s a smart marketing tool for a retailer: “As long as I’m in the store, I’m spending — and if you can feed me too, all the better.”
As with many culinary trends, the Europeans were there first. And it’s certainly true that there’s something about being in a foreign city that makes everything seem a little more acceptable and exotic.
To that end, on a recent trip to Paris, while shopping at the aforementioned Printemps, a friend and I tucked into the pretty Laduree tearoom almost hidden up on the second floor, where tea and delicate French macaroons seemed like the exact right thing to do. So, too, when I was at Birks in Montreal over the holidays (boy, I really get around, don’t I?), where I ducked in from the snowy cold and was met by the happy buzz of shoppers loaded down with bags from a successful day out shopping on rue Ste-Catherine.
Some were enjoying coffee and layered European-style cakes at the Birks Café, while others were indulging in the full afternoon tea service (a selection of teas from Mariage Freres, scones, Devonshire cream, Rolland Del Monte jams, macaroons, Christophe Morel chocolates, finger sandwiches ranging from cucumber and shrimp to foie gras and chutney, plus a bag of sweets to take home). They also have a full table d’hote menu for lunch — healthy-leaning French cuisine, by executive chef Jerome Ferrer.
That said, I didn’t stay to eat. I had some serious shopping to get done.
====
A string of pearls with your latte?
Amy Rosen, 12 Fenruary 2011
National Post
Forget about boring old food court fodder like chicken balls and curly fries. If we’re willing to drop two grand in a swank lifestyle store, we should be able do better than a $4 meal deal. And now, thanks to a slew of new in-store dining options, we can have wood oven-roasted Maine lobster, Champagne — and proper service — to go along with our Italian hand-tooled leather purses.
Just last week, The Hudson’s Bay Company announced it is planning to revamp its in-store eateries across the country, bringing in trendy restaurateurs Oliver & Bonacini to spiff up such dining hotspots as Winnipeg’s Paddlewheel Restaurant. The Winnipeg Free Press noted that local institution’s Orange Jell-O was memorialized in Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg — probably not the cachet Bay CEO Bonnie Brooks is after.
But the move toward higher-end in-store eating is already well underway. Last December, Birks in Montreal opened an in-store café in its grand circa 1902 building. ABC Carpet and Home in Manhattan launched the Jean-Georges-helmed ABC Kitchen in 2010, and Todd English’s Food Hall is now open in the new Shops at the Plaza Hotel.
In the Plaza’s freshly renovated Grand Concourse, as well as in the lobby and on the fourth floor, there’s a sparkling collection of highfalutin shops and services, most of which are European name brands I’ve never heard of, such as Caudalie, Krigler and Morgenthal Frederics. But what I do know is food, and I found myself instantly smitten with the new Plaza Food Hall.
A pretty and compact space, you can have handmade dumplings at one bar, sidle over to the next counter for a whole grilled branzino or a few oysters on the half shell at Ocean Grill & Oyster Bar, or mosey across the room for Todd English’s signature flatbreads, including a most delicious fig and prosciutto with gorgonzola, all of which are served hot from the oven on wooden paddles.
Still, you’ve got to wonder, is all of this dining and quaffing getting in the way of power shopping?
“I love the trend of in-store dining,” says Lisa Tant, editor-in-chief of Flare. “Whenever I’m in serious shopping mode, I don’t want anything to distract me from the task at hand. I don’t have a lot of time, so dining in my favourite stores — Harvey Nichols, Printemps and Holt Renfrew [where, incidentally, she loves the salads] — completes the experience and saves hassle.” Tant also finds that it’s a smart marketing tool for a retailer: “As long as I’m in the store, I’m spending — and if you can feed me too, all the better.”
As with many culinary trends, the Europeans were there first. And it’s certainly true that there’s something about being in a foreign city that makes everything seem a little more acceptable and exotic.
To that end, on a recent trip to Paris, while shopping at the aforementioned Printemps, a friend and I tucked into the pretty Laduree tearoom almost hidden up on the second floor, where tea and delicate French macaroons seemed like the exact right thing to do. So, too, when I was at Birks in Montreal over the holidays (boy, I really get around, don’t I?), where I ducked in from the snowy cold and was met by the happy buzz of shoppers loaded down with bags from a successful day out shopping on rue Ste-Catherine.
Some were enjoying coffee and layered European-style cakes at the Birks Café, while others were indulging in the full afternoon tea service (a selection of teas from Mariage Freres, scones, Devonshire cream, Rolland Del Monte jams, macaroons, Christophe Morel chocolates, finger sandwiches ranging from cucumber and shrimp to foie gras and chutney, plus a bag of sweets to take home). They also have a full table d’hote menu for lunch — healthy-leaning French cuisine, by executive chef Jerome Ferrer.
That said, I didn’t stay to eat. I had some serious shopping to get done.
DTowner
Active Member
$7 or $8 plus tax for a sandwhich is not reasonable (at least not for me). It better be one damned-big sandwhich for that price! I have never eaten in Arcadia or City View (honestly, I never knew they existed until recently). I am sure to give them a try before they shut down.
Skeezix
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That's not out of whack for the Financial District, to be honest.
City View is a nice old style cafeteria - best value for your money, given the fantastic views.
pw20
Active Member
7/8 is probably on the cheaper side for the financial district in terms of lunch options. And really isn't that expensive... unless you're comparing it to fast food.
FAC33
Active Member
I just ate there on Friday, partially to check out that amazing painting that was mentioned earlier in this thread (never noticed it before).
They have a $5.99 burger combo that gets you the burger, a lot of fries (very good ones, too), cole slaw or salad, and a drink. Outside of fast food, I doubt you'll do better downtown (and this even gives fast food a run for its money.)
And I'll never tire of that view. Really hoping it's still accessible once the renos happen.