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Extra, Extra: Starbuckses, Star Busted, and Chuggo’s Star Rusted

By David Topping

Every weekday’s end, Extra, Extra collects just about everything you ought to care about or ought not miss.

20100604starbucks2.jpg
3077 Dundas Street West (at left), the future home of a Starbucks—maybe. Photo by Christopher Drost/Torontoist.

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Comments

  • http://undefined bittles

    why yuck? one of the best beers in toronto, he is open about his potential conflict of interest. you think graham makes enough money to earn a living right a half page for now every week?
    come on torontoist.

  • http://undefined bittles

    *writing

  • http://undefined rek

    What does it matter if NOW alone doesn’t pay him enough to live on? He shouldn’t have reviewed his client’s beer, or any other for that matter.

  • http://undefined TOgal

    Ugh. That comment about Starbucks in the Junction really got under my skin. I don’t live in the Junction (for the record) but what makes you think they would welcome a Starbucks anymore that the folks in Kensington? And what the hell does “not-gentrifying-fast-enough” mean? The addition of some great little cafes, restaurants and stores all along the Junction part of Dundas West in the last year just doesn’t meet your gentrification timeline?
    I agree that a Starbucks wouldn’t likely be a “change for the worse” but the level of condescension and assumption in your paragraph is beyond irritating.

  • http://undefined torontothegreat

    what difference does it make if he gives full disclosure? It’s not exactly dishonest…
    Goldsbie announces it like he uncovered it or something. That seems much more dishonest to me.

  • http://www.torontoist.com David Topping

    I was born in the Junction and lived there for eighteen years. I go back often. It could use a Starbucks.

  • http://undefined James Goneaux

    Well, I live in the “dead zone” out on Danforth, and even though we also have some “great little cafes, restaurants and stores” opening up, the operative word here is “little”.
    I hate Starbucks, never drink their crap and hold their pretentious customers in as much contempt as I do litter bugs, cyclists on sidewalks and those who push the handicap button on doors when they aren’t handicapped.
    But SOMETHING needs to be an anchor in the ‘nabe. Two “little” coffee places have opened and closed in as many years – their pockets weren’t deep enough to deal with a slowdown.
    I see Starbucks as a kind of chemotherapy: toxic, doesn’t always work, but better than the alternative (in this case, the cancer of another empty storefront).
    Besides, whatever happened to the idea of “if you don’t like it, don’t go there”? Do people actually think that Starbucks customers travel across the city to a particular spot, bypassing a dozen clones? Or is it that they can’t get over the fact that their neighbours might be the ones patronizing the place?

  • Dry Brain

    Why is the alternative an empty storefront? Surely something else will eventually move in. We’re not talking about an economically desperate area, just one that’s still relatively working class.
    And why does the street need an “anchor”? Malls and PowerCentres have anchors… streets have stores.
    No neighbourhood needs a Starbucks. They need good, viable, locally-operated businesses, and the Junction has plenty. I don’t think a Starbucks is a harbinger of the apocalypse, but I wouldn’t welcome it.
    (I do agree though, about those people who push handicapped buttons on doors when they’re not handicapped. Damn, that’s irksome.)

  • http://undefined TOgal

    “It could use a Starbucks”!?! I am still baffled.
    I’m not even a Starbucks hater.. as some are… but I really don’t know what this means.

  • http://undefined TOgal

    There are quite a few successful cafes, restaurants and shops in the Junction. Yes, it has been a slow progression… but it is doing just fine without an “anchor”. And, continuing with your chemo analogy… the Junction doesn’t need chemo ’cause it hasn’t got cancer. It just doesn’t appear to be “healthy” in the way we have come to expect that a neighbourhood “should” or “has to” look… ya know?

  • http://undefined James Goneaux

    “Why is the alternative an empty storefront?”
    Well, because that’s what is happening (this is Danforth between Greenwood and Woodbine).
    My barber was semi-forced out of the shop he had been in since 1965 – two full years ago in March (I say semi, because he was close to retirement, but doubling the rent kinda meant he couldn’t really go out on his own terms).
    The store has had a “store for rent” sign ever since. Now, I just read the Desjardin Credit Union is closing.
    Yes, it isn’t all bad news, some new places opening, but it is, at best, just keeping up. One opens, one closes. Maybe two open, but one closes.
    “They need good, viable, locally-operated businesses”.
    Can’t agree more. Rumour has it that much of the strip is owned by one person who is going to maximize his investment. Still, a business plan that says its better to keep the shop closed (paying taxes and some hydro and water, etc. perhaps) seems dumb.
    So, where are these mysterious business people willing to take the risk in the “dead zone”?
    Actually, one of the TWO new bakeries (again, its not all bad news), has to continually either move her car or run out to feed the meter. Does this make sense? Toronto has a business office that no doubt prints out lots of pretty pamphlets, but can’t give someone working 15 hour days a break?

  • http://undefined TOgal

    “No neighbourhood needs a Starbucks. They need good, viable, locally-operated businesses, and the Junction has plenty. I don’t think a Starbucks is a harbinger of the apocalypse, but I wouldn’t welcome it.”
    Exactly my thought. Thank you.

  • http://undefined fco

    The “anchor” to the strip already exists in Crema. A very good anchor at that: it does well and has actively served the community (was very helpful in saving the Junction post office – you may have still been around for that, Topping). Crema is right across the street from the proposed Starbucks.

  • Adam Sobolak

    I thought “not-gentrifying-fast-enough” was meant more sarcastically than earnestly…

  • thelemur

    Several months ago on Dupont near the Loblaws at Christie, someone took an old vacant corner dry cleaning place and renovated it to make it Starbucks ready. They painted it the exact shade of green Starbucks uses and even obtained a variance from the city for a big round illuminated mermaid sign. Then the renovations stopped and the realtor is still looking for a tenant. It’s the Starbucks that never was. Perhaps that’s what’s happening in the Junction. Commercial realtors love landing clients like Starbucks, but Starbucks isn’t always as interested.

  • http://undefined TOgal

    “I thought “not-gentrifying-fast-enough” was meant more sarcastically than earnestly”
    … well, you would think so (especially given how unfashionable it is to be earnest) … but I’m not so sure given David’s comment (to my first post) that the area could “use a Starbucks”. But maybe I’m just missing the sarcasm… it is, after all, the lowest form of wit. ;)

  • Adam Sobolak

    Especially since, in this case, it involved not a simple renovation but a demolition/rebuild–pretty cloddish Starbucks bait, if you ask me…

  • http://undefined Robert Lubinski

    Starbucks moves in where they think they make a go of it. If the area just doesn’t have the traffic, is depressed or they think there aren’t enough potential customers, they won’t open up. I watched hundreds of local businesses full of promise come and go on Danforth east of Greenwood for 25 years. I don’t know if even a Starbucks would help.