PIVOT! PIVOT!

BELOW: Maya Bay in Cabbagetown was originally intended to be a late-night snack bar before COVID shifted its focus

As Toronto’s restaurants and bars begin to reopen, things are looking a little different. We meet the people who aren’t afraid to change things up in order to keep their businesses alive.

WORDS BY KATIE BRIDGES |

PHOTOS BY JEFFREY CHAN

ASPECIAL NIGHT DESERVES a special dining experience, and my wedding anniversary in May was no different. I chose a new pop-up situated directly in my ’hood (cough, living room) for its location and very little else. Between its seriously cozy dimensions, bashed up neon bar sign, and a pile of laundry that threatened to spill off an armchair, it would struggle to notch up two stars on Yelp. The service did little to redeem things (the guy who took my order proceeded to scroll through memes for five minutes). But the drinks were boozy, and hey, what choice did we have? Welcome to dining ‘out’ in 2020.

When the universe threw the ultimate spanner in the works this March, we holed up in our apartments and clung whiteknuckled as we shuttled between denial (“I’m making sourdough!”) and acceptance (“I’m still making sourdough!”), and back again.

But while we were riding the COVID grief express train – or creating tasting menus and cocktails in makeshift bars in our apartments – the industry was already making plans.

“We tried to stay open for a week,” says

Jimson Bienenstock, co-owner of HotBlack

Coffee on Queen Street West. “Then we closed on March 22 – we knew we needed to reinvent and regroup because coming inside was no longer an option.”

The popular coffee shop – which made waves when it opened in 2017 for withholding free WiFi from customers – initially took advantage of their complete lack of business, redoing the flooring and getting things ready to reopen. When society itself wasn’t ready to be unveiled, Bienenstock rolled up his sleeves.

“I physically couldn’t find a builder, so I sawed our big central harvest table down. We wheeled it into the front window and were able to serve directly from the front doorstep.”

Little did HotBlack know that this was just the beginning of its metamorphosis into a foodie playground – and the reason why my coffee run now routinely nets out at $60.

When the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of

Ontario announced that restaurants and bars could sell alcohol with a food component, the coffee shop wasted little time pivoting.

“I literally took the bottles out of the cellar and stuck them on the shelf,” says

Bienenstock, a trained sommelier who had previously licenced the store for industry events like TIFF. “We already had the skill set, the local stuff and the natural component. It was quite straightforward.”

The only problem? Interesting wines from Pearl Morissette and Hidden Bench, which didn’t require a wait outside the LCBO, quickly sold out and before long Bienenstock was driving out to Niagara to pick up more. While there, he stopped at Upper Canada Cheese Company, where he was introduced to other makers, and so on and so forth. Suddenly, he was loading up the trunk with everything from hot sauce to apple juice, providing HotBlack customers with directto-producer quality. Though the Queen St. coffee shop was making sourdough long before lockdown, their loaves received a glow up – they’re now baked with terroir-driven

MAYA BAY FEELS MORE LIKE BANGKOK’S KHAOSAN ROAD THAN TORONTO

CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE: Maya Bay, which opened mid-lockdown, operates as a Thaistyle street market; Jimson Bienenstock serves customers curbside at HotBlack Coffee; rare Ontario wines have become a large part of the coffee shop’s offering

flour from K2 Milling, where “one field has a completely different flavour to another field of milled flour. [And] it’s not sitting there breaking down in a bag for weeks or months,” says Bienenstock of the producer.

Though it requires a drive out of Toronto, Bienenstock is happy for the break and glad to repair the broken supply chain in the wake of the pandemic. Plus, he’s learning a lot: “Who knew that some of the world’s best hot peppers grow on the shore of Lake Erie?”

And while opening a restaurant midpandemic is unlikely to top the wishlists of Toronto’s restaurateurs, one enterprising proprietor has turned lemons into lemongrass over in Cabbagetown.

“We signed the lease on March 15, and planned to open in the middle of April,” says Phanom “Patrick” Suksaen, the owner of a number of Thai restaurants, most recently Maya Bay on Carlton Street.

“Originally, Maya Bay was going to be a late-night Thai snack bar with drinks. We would serve some full meals as well, and then we’d close around 1 a.m.”

I nstead, Maya Bay has temporarily been given over entirely to Talad Thai Market, with chefs firing up grills in the open and serving spicy dishes like satay chicken, kanom krok (coconut pancakes) and pork

skewers through the open window. As I sip a pineapple smoothie, served in the hollowedout fruit on the hottest day of the year, the restaurant feels more like it’s on Bangkok’s Khaosan Road than Parliament Street.

“Because of COVID, I had to think of something different – so that we could survive and so we could help the Thai community make money as well.”

That meant offering any of his out-ofwork employees or friends in the hospitality industry access to the facilities at the bustling market pop-up in Cabbagetown.

“Any chef wanting to cook their snacks can use our kitchen and we’ll sell it in front of →

ABOVE: Chef Chris Locke has created a physical distancing-friendly menu on Marben ’s patio; RIGHT: Treats from Marben’s grocery box service

→ Maya Bay,” explains Patrick as he makes me up a bag of goodies. Sister spots Koh Lipe and Eat BKK on Queen also have Talad Thai stalls out front, but it’s Maya Bay with the streetside khanom bueang (crispy pancakes), sai krok (spicy sausage) and Thai ice cones that make any visit feel like such a spectacle.

“People need something outdoors right now, they need a festival. There’s nothing like that at the moment, so I tried to create something that would make people want to eat on the street again.”

When Toronto moved into Phase Two, restaurants walked a moral tightrope as they prepared to open patios in a way that made customers and staff alike feel safe. On a steamy Wednesday in July, I head to Wellington Street, where the table is set for the first meal beyond my apartment in months.

“This has been the strangest menu launch,” admits Chris Locke, chef at Marben and the mastermind behind the neighbourhood spot’s COVID survival plan.

“We’re extremely locally and seasonally focused, but with everything that’s going on, a lot of farmers just aren’t growing stuff or don’t have the labour to harvest ingredients. The supply chain has been disrupted.”

For a restaurant that only has to walk across its patio to pluck greens from vegetable planters, relying on ingredients that come from the U.S. or Mexico has been a little galling. However, given the current climate, the chef understands the bigger picture.

“Making it taste good is more important than the educational aspect right now,” says Locke, who explains that with guests accessing menus from a QR code, Marben was conscious of keeping wording simple.

“It’s a very odd experience – servers wearing masks are trying to explain a dish to somebody who is reading it off their phone. We just try to make the guest experience as good as it can be given everything we have to take into account.”

M ission accomplished. After a long hiatus from the restaurant scene, in which food on a plate now seems elevated, I am grateful to dive into my meal without a soliloquy from our server that requires a dictionary to decode. The other (far less welcome) absence from the evening is Cloak Bar, a spinoff speakeasy below Marben. The bar may have been shuttered since March, but its spirit has been kept alive with bottled cocktails sold through their grocery service, including drinks like Miles From Japan, the bar’s delicious bestseller made with gin, Choya Umeshu and Tio Pepe sherry.

PEOPLE NEED SOMETHING OUTDOORS RIGHT NOW, THEY NEED A FESTIVAL

While waiting for a government wage subsidy, the restaurant launched Marben Market, their farm-to-table grocery box service. Undeniably, the industry was in trouble – but what a coup to have restaurantquality pickles, jams, preserves and bread available to collect on our daily lockdown walks! If we didn’t feel like cooking, delivery options quickly popped up with cocktail kit add-ons becoming more appealing the longer this went on. Even Alo, Canada’s top-rated restaurant, did the unthinkable and opened up reservations for a different kind of tasting menu – one I can enjoy from the comfort of my pajamas. Not only does the delivery come with my name on the menu, it also grants access to the restaurant’s Spotify playlist,

meaning I can dim my lights and play make believe, even digging out linen napkins to go with my braised veal shanks and dinner rolls.

Fun though it might be, delivery innovations are hardly a boon financially, with restaurants already operating on razorthin margins before the pandemic.

“What people need to realize is that a lot of the innovation and ways people have pivoted was basically to stay alive, but it’s not a real moneymaker,” says David Hopkins, president of the Fifteen Group, a North American restaurant consulting company.

One thing he would like to see continue, however, is the AGCO’s willingness to relax the rules around booze. And while liquidating (literally) their assets was a good way to unload some inventory, he thinks the authority could go one step further.

“At the moment, restaurants are paying pretty much the same price you pay at the liquor store for their alcohol, which makes absolutely no sense.”

In contrast, B.C. just moved to a model where restaurants receive a wholesale discount for alcohol – an easy win for the Ontario government if they want to impact restaurant survival.

But aside from not leaving one-star reviews – as one of chef Anthony Rose’s customers did when her meal was disrupted due to COVID health and safety measures at Madame Boeuf – what can we do as customers? Well, stomaching an increased bill is a good place to start.

“We’re encouraging our clients to put their prices up,” says Hopkins. “Right now, there aren’t enough tables to go around. If your capacity is reduced by 50 per cent, you need to make money somehow.”

When some of the city’s oldest establishments have buckled in the face of coronavirus (Vesuvio’s, Prohibition Gastrohouse, Globe Bistro), it would be foolish to think that the industry can bounce back unscathed. However, in Alberta and B.C., where restaurants have been open inside for weeks, there’s been little pushback from guests on higher prices. A sign, Hopkins believes, that good things are ahead.

“The lingering effect of this is that restaurants could actually get back to being a profitable industry instead of a challenge.”

A pandemic, like Toronto’s restaurant scene, is unpredictable and by the time you’re reading this, it’s entirely possible we could be dining out in a much more ‘normal’ way. But one thing is for sure – our appetite for great food is as insatiable as ever. f