Kensington Market

[yrt+viva=1system]

Mare Pizzeria has papered over windows and appears to be done. Cheap pizza joint since the 90’s, but I never tried it - anyone been?

I thought it was gone for a while now. When they were open they had best thin crust pizza in my opinion. The slices were huge, always fresh and pretty cheap ($4 or $5). Because of the lack of space, the pizza was never on display. You would simply order and they would fetch it from the oven, the turn around of slices meant they never sat in the oven long enough for it to age but were piping hot. I used to purposely head out of my way to grab a slice from them, there was always a constant stream of customers coming and going.

Now I go to Fresca Pizza and Pasta at College and Spadina, it's the closest to the style of pizza Mare Pizzeria offered.

If anyone knows of other places that make theses giant slices of thin crust pizza please recommend!

 

[AlbertC]

I always thought that the colourful exterior of Mare was a recognizable part of the Kensington streetscape.

Reportedly they were locked out for not paying rent since Oct 2022:

Toronto pizza joint closes after being locked out by landlord

Mare Pizzeria has been evicted from its colourful space in Kensington Market. After opening in 2014, this small takeaway shop gained popularity fo...

www.blogto.com

I thought it was gone for a while now. When they were open they had best thin crust pizza in my opinion. The slices were huge, always fresh and pretty cheap ($4 or $5). Because of the lack of space, the pizza was never on display. You would simply order and they would fetch it from the oven, the turn around of slices meant they never sat in the oven long enough for it to age but were piping hot. I used to purposely head out of my way to grab a slice from them, there was always a constant stream of customers coming and going.

Now I go to Fresca Pizza and Pasta at College and Spadina, it's the closest to the style of pizza Mare Pizzeria offered.

If anyone knows of other places that make theses giant slices of thin crust pizza please recommend!

Maybe not fully in the thin crust category, but I feel Bitondo's on Clinton Street south of College is similar in the grab and go manner of serving slices. It's further west by a bit but they've been around for many years.

 

[yrt+viva=1system]

I always thought that the colourful exterior of Mare was a recognizable part of the Kensington streetscape.

Reportedly they were locked out for not paying rent since Oct 2022:

Toronto pizza joint closes after being locked out by landlord

Mare Pizzeria has been evicted from its colourful space in Kensington Market. After opening in 2014, this small takeaway shop gained popularity fo...

www.blogto.com

Maybe not fully in the thin crust category, but I feel Bitondo's on Clinton Street south of College is similar in the grab and go manner of serving slices. It's further west by a bit but they've been around for many years.

I will go and check them out!

If anyone else knows of other old school no-nonsense pizzerias please share

 

[Towered]

I thought it was gone for a while now. When they were open they had best thin crust pizza in my opinion. The slices were huge, always fresh and pretty cheap ($4 or $5). Because of the lack of space, the pizza was never on display. You would simply order and they would fetch it from the oven, the turn around of slices meant they never sat in the oven long enough for it to age but were piping hot. I used to purposely head out of my way to grab a slice from them, there was always a constant stream of customers coming and going.

Now I go to Fresca Pizza and Pasta at College and Spadina, it's the closest to the style of pizza Mare Pizzeria offered.

If anyone knows of other places that make theses giant slices of thin crust pizza please recommend!

I concur - I was impressed by Fresca when I went there a few weeks ago. King Slice is good too - massive slices!!

 

[AlbertC]

King Slice is great. It's also especially popular for the Friday-Saturday nightlife going crowd along Queen West!

 

[Towered]

King Slice is great. It's also especially popular for the Friday-Saturday nightlife going crowd along Queen West!

Extra large slices come in handy to soak up copious amounts of booze in one's system

 

[AlbertC]

Pedestrian Sundays in Kensington Market begin this weekend. As per previous years, they'll take place every last Sunday of each month, until the end of October:

Kensington Market is having one more street festival this year with food & drinks

The Sunday street parties we know and love are back at Kensington Market for the last time this year, on October 29th.

curiocity.com

 

[Towered]

Interior of the new Burdock Brewery:

 

[jje1000]

Seems like pedestrianization is not going forward, but a woonerf-like road design wilth rolled curbs will be used instead:

https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/14a70kb

https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2023/te/bgrd/backgroundfile-237354.pdf

lol at this comment.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Yesterday, July 30, 2023, was a car free Sunday in Kensington Market.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1685730754074935296

Some of the comments...

These merchants and the BIA must really hate this!

Unironically, given all of the concerns they submitted to the city (both written and in-person deputations), they very much do hate it! I can't understand it either.

Look at all those businesses, little to no customers walking by due to lack of cars.

 

[afransen]

Mind boggling that people think pedestrianization would be bad for business:

 

[afransen]

I've seen a bit of chatter lately about Community Land Trusts, in particular this one in Kensington Market. Here is a video by the excellent journo Uytae Lee.

 

[rdaner]

Had lunch in Kensington. Taken 20 February.

 

[rdaner]

I met people at Parallel Basta on Augusta and it was fabulous! I will note that these more upmarket places are rapidly replacing older businesses but that isn’t news to anyone. What is encouraging is that ventures seeking cheaper rent are popping up along Dundas between Beverley and Bathurst.

 

[AlbertC]

77-79 Nassau Street is listed for sale at $3.5 million:

https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/26522589/77-79-nassau-st-toronto-kensington-chinatown