This city-led Toronto food hall closed abruptly after all its vendors were evicted. Now it’s getting a second chance

Now, the space reopened under the management of non-profit Feed Scarborough hoping to get people in to try a new wave of dishes that aren’t available elsewhere on this restaurant-heavy strip of Yonge Street (think jerk, curry, momos, burritos and veggie subs, all ordered from one of the digital kiosks at the entrance). The space, located at 5210 Yonge Street, also acts as a job-training centre for new Canadians and refugees wanting to gain a foothold in the local food industry.

Sylvester Kamau had an event company and made his own spice and sauce blends before moving to Toronto from Nairobi last fall, and now prepares momos and baos filled with duck confit, pork belly and fish tempura at the Momo + Bao stall. Before this job, he never had momos or baos before. “I was shocked, but then I tried them and now I love them,” he says. One month into operations, he’s following the recipes developed by Feed Scarborough, but once he’s comfortable with those, he’s open to adding his own touches, like mango sauce, into the dishes.

Next to Kamau, Suprasad-Kumar Ray is making an order of tofu, barbacoa and chipotle chicken tacos at the Burro Loco booth. He came to Canada from Bangladesh in December. “It’s all very different but everything is going smoothly so far,” he says of getting used to living in a new country and learning about working in food. “By working here, I’m opening a lot of doors for myself.”

Feed Scarborough founder Suman Roy is happy with how things are going so far. “In a little over a month, the food looks good, they’re taking ownership. It’s a six-month program where we pay them a stipend. After six months, they have the option of going another six months or they can take the concept and branding and open their own shop.”

In addition to giving job training to newcomers, Feed Scarborough is also mentoring a startup business, a vegan and vegetarian sandwich stall called SubG, at the food hall.

Food Hall TO’s daily operations are overseen by manager Tracy Fowler, who taught at Centennial College’s hospitality program, and Kristine Guerrero-Del Rosario, who teaches the basics such as food sanitation, knife skills and kitchen prep. Fowler says they’re working on incorporating a coffee bar, couches to lounge in, an outdoor patio, and more tables in the back for people to work on their laptops. An additional food concept is in the works to create pay-what-you-can meals to meet the non-profit’s goal of helping those facing food insecurity.

However, there are still challenges to the space. There’s no dedicated entrance to the food hall. You either enter through a door beside the food hall simply marked “Office Building,” or you go through one of the sliding glass doors that run along the side of the building, which is in the shade and facing a fenced-off building under construction.

There were signs on the sidewalk pointing customers to the food hall, but the wind tunnel created by the surrounding high rises lead to the signs breaking. Competition is also stiff, as this stretch of Yonge Street is dominated by restaurants. People are slowly trickling in and discovering the reopened space, but the tables were mostly empty during a recent weekday lunch.

“It’s a huge challenge, there’s no question,” says Roy about the space and getting passersby to enter. “We have to figure out what else can we do to make sure people see it better. We put the signage that’s lit up at night, but we still need more to get people to come in. I was looking at projecting something on the sidewalk.”

Still, Roy is hoping it will be a success and lead to similar concepts back in Scarborough where his organization is based. 

“In Scarborough, and Scarborough Southwest, development is skyrocketing,” says Roy, who ran in the Ward 20 Scarborough Southwest by-election last December. “We want this project to be a success so we can propose to other developers to have this program in their building, but we need a success story first.”