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Restaurant Comings & Goings

20 November 2010: How long will it last before it goes high rise condo? 3 years is my guess.

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La Palette in Kensington is closed :(

http://www.torontolife.com/daily/da...ttering-its-kensington-location-this-weekend/

When Shamez Amlani muses about this coming Sunday, it’s not without a little sentimentality. Three days from now, the restaurant he co-owns in Kensington Market, La Palette, will shut its doors for good so that he and his team can concentrate on the Queen West location. Ten years ago, Amlani and his associates applied a meagre $18,000 to a grungy Chinese joint and turned it into an edgy French bistro. They never imagined that it would have taken off the way it did. “It’s a miracle,” Amlani tell us. “We shot at the moon, and we actually hit it.”

Back then, Kensington Market’s nightlife left something to be desired. “There was a junky bar across the street and not much else going on,” he recalls. La Palette helped pave the way for an influx of hip new venues, like Supermarket and Waterfalls, and was integral in organizing the neighbourhood’s Pedestrian Sundays.

Amlani, of course, will soon focus all of his attention on the new incarnation of La Palette on Queen West. The two restaurants will be consolidated, and Queen West denizens will see La Palette offering a lunch menu in the near future and staying open later in the evening.

As for the flagship, Amlani wanted to keep it going, but was facing an unfavourable lease. He’s not looking back, though. He sees the challenge of setting up shop on Queen Street—“a cesspool of burgers and wings and pizza, in many ways”—as similar to the one he faced 10 years ago in Kensington. “It’s history repeating itself,” he says.
 
Gabby's across from the ROM is moving two doors down to Lobby's space (or so the signs in the windows say- Jan 2011 opening). So... where is Lobby going? Did they shut down for good?

Gabby's could be moving to make space for Exhibit's sales centre?
 
Another burger joint is opening up in the space previously occupied by Stix & Stones on the southeast side of King & Spadina. Another burger joint? Really? You've got the Grindhouse on one side already and Craft Burger just down the street. Since this space is cursed, I don't see it being open for long.
 
Another burger joint is opening up in the space previously occupied by Stix & Stones on the southeast side of King & Spadina. Another burger joint? Really? You've got the Grindhouse on one side already and Craft Burger just down the street. Since this space is cursed, I don't see it being open for long.

Agreed, that's a huge space to fill with a burger joint. The last couple tenants were full-scale pubs/sports bars and even they couldn't make a go of it. And you know the Fancy Burger Bubble has to pop soon...
 
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I don't think the space where Stix & Stones was is cursed. I think it might have been S&S itself. I think it's more likely the previous tenant, Shoeless Joe's, closed because they opened a new location (maybe the same franchisee) at Queen's Quay and Rees.
 
Brass Taps Cabbagetown appears to have closed.

I never once went inside. That stretch of Carlton from Sherbourne to Parliament is just a bad place for a restaurant to be (unless it's right at Carlton/Parliament). I can't see how the Mexican place and the diner across the street are going to survive. I like Jam Café, but I worry about them too.
 
I don't think the space where Stix & Stones was is cursed. I think it might have been S&S itself. I think it's more likely the previous tenant, Shoeless Joe's, closed because they opened a new location (maybe the same franchisee) at Queen's Quay and Rees.

I had heard that the same guy had run both of the restaurants. Stix and Stones was terrible though and it could have been a great sports bar if it was done right. The place was the coldest place i've ever been to and you can tell it was decorated by a woman. All they needed was doilies and lace tablecloths. Not to mention the service sucked.
 

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