Watch the world go by, one at a time.
Listen to this coffice space review, complete with ambient sound from the place, on Patreon.
Do you have any idea what an interesting assortment of people pass by on Sherbourne just north of King every day? Come sit and work at Black Canary and you will. Continue reading
Come this way…
Listen to the podcast of this coffice space review on Patreon.
It’s cicada season. You know, the heat buzzer insect. It sounds like an old-fashioned oven timer when the air outside feels like an old-fashioned oven. On days like this, inside is not always where you want to be. Especially when inside has no air conditioning. Continue reading
Posted in Coffice Space
Tagged back patio, Boxcar Social, Coffice Space, Yonge Street
Everyone’s here to drink coffee and do work
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There are ten two-person wooden tables in The Good Neighbour on Bloor east of Christie and, as I sit here, eight of them are occupied, each by one person, each person facing towards the window (or, in the case of the four side-facing ones, away from the wall), and all but two of them have a MacBook open – and those two are looking at phones and pads. Almost everyone has an iPhone on their table too. The music is pleasant and nondistracting (unless you strongly dislike folk or mid-century schmalz). This is a coffice space. Continue reading
(Mac)book, coffee, view.
Listen to this coffice space review (complete with ambient noise from the actual place) on Patreon.
Balzac’s is a local chain of coffee joints. They’re very popular and they make good coffee in all its wondrous forms. They have delicious snacks, too – I recommend the big peanut-butter parallelepipeds. And their locations are all nice looking, each in its own way. There are at least three of their outposts in walking distance from me, depending on what you consider walking distance. But I don’t often go to them to sit and work – especially not to the two nearest me. Continue reading
The one part of b that didn’t have any people in it at the time
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I missed seeing b Espresso Bar for months because it’s just a half a block farther east than I normally go when I’m on Queen Street. It’s not the prettiest of blocks; the view out the windows is a parking lot across the street (also known as a future condo, because that’s what all parking lots in central Toronto are). Another block east and you’re at Moss Park. But a block west and you’re at Metropolitan United and two of the biggest and best camera stores in Toronto… plus a strip of pawn shops. Two blocks west of that is the Eaton Centre. This is not a neighbourhood “in transition”; this neighbourhood isa transition. It’s permanently between one thing and another, or maybe it’s just both and neither. Continue reading
Nice view, eh? Guess where.
This is a coffice space review. You can listen to the audio version on Patreon.
Piedmont Coffee Bar is a little getaway in the heart of Toronto. Nothing about its sights, scents, or sounds is specifically reminscent of the part of northwestern Italy it’s named after, but Isabella Street just west of Church Street looks a lot like Vancouver’s West End when you look out the windows of this coffee joint: there are more trees per block, and per apartment block, than you get in many other parts of Toronto. The art on the walls here could be in a gallery in, well, I dunno, pick what city you like to go to galleries in. Portland. Chicago. Wherever. And the soft jazz music that fills the air here may make you feel like you’re in a 1970s travel documentary. Continue reading
Just watching the world go by (but I waited for there to be no cars because I hate having cars in the way of the buildings)
Today’s coffice space is in Rosedale. Have a listen to me reading this (with ambient sound from the location) on Patreon.
Do you draw your inspiration from watching people – mostly women of all ages – walk up and down Yonge Street in Rosedale? Yeah? Have I got the place for you.
Are you invigorated by overhearing conversations over coffee or light lunch at a Scandinavian-décor place on Yonge Street in Rosedale? Yup? Have I got the place for you.
Does your ideal coffice space smell like vegetable stock, cumin, garlic, roast chicken, allspice, apples, and other food things such as you might expect at a whitebread Scandinavian-décor cafeteria-service restaurant on a busy street in a well-off neighbourhood in a large city in eastern North America? Uh-huh, you say? Have. I. Got. Your. Place. Continue reading
A safe distance from the brightness
This is another coffice space review. Listen to the audio version (complete with background noise recorded on location) on Patreon – for free!
Welcome to Boxcar Social in Harbourfront Centre, with a beautiful view of a pond, a fountain, and, beyond those, the harbour. You’ll want to sit right at the window. But don’t.
The view is great, yes. But it’s so bright outside and so dark inside. If you’re working on a laptop, this is going to cause you headaches. Literal ones. Plant yourself at one of the tables inside. They have lower picnic-styled ones with benches and they have higher counters with chairs with backs.
They also have a bar, if you don’t mind facing away from the scenery. Continue reading
Sitting down to work
This is my coffice space review of Sumach Espresso. Listen to it on Patreon (and then subscribe to help pay my coffee bills).
Sumach Espresso is a neighbourhood espresso joint. Many of the customers are on first-name basis with the baristas. It’s on a side-street corner at Sumach and Shuter, and your odds of happening on it by chance are pretty low. That doesn’t mean it’s unfriendly or somehow exclusive – it’s not. It does mean you’re unlikely to get blitzed by scads of passing suits or crowded out by goggling tourists. Continue reading
You’ll have to come see the baristas for yourself.
This is a coffice space review. Listen to the audio version on Patreon.
Two things keep me coming back to Fahrenheit every week or so: Continue reading
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