It's a Toronto habit to envy the urbanity of other cities -- London, Paris, New York. So it's no surprise that Spot Coffee, a new downtown café full of comfortable chairs and espresso fumes, is borrowing its style from somewhere else.
But from Buffalo?
Strange, and true. Located in a condo building across from the Rogers Centre, the store is the latest in a chain that was founded in Western New York.
"They go back to the roots of what a café is," says owner John Lorenzo, gesturing at the large, inviting tables and smorgasbord of food. "In Paris, it came up as a result of small accommodations: People couldn't meet in their homes, so they had to meet in cafés."
Mr. Lorenzo - a Markham-based entrepreneur who has worked in businesses from oil services to waffles - became a café enthusiast during his university days in Beirut, and honed his expertise later in Paris. "I became very interested in the history of the café," he says. "I was excited to go to El Greco in Rome, where the café idea was developed. That model tells us a lot about who we are."
And when he went to check out the Spot Coffee chain in Buffalo several years ago, he felt the shop served a similar community role in the city's artsy Elmwood Village. "I found they had successfully created a village within the city," he says. "And in this café, I saw, everybody knows everybody!"
The Spot model, which Mr. Lorenzo bought in 2004, produces an unfailingly friendly vibe that's more Western New York than Left Bank. Asked for a coffee, server Jen Weddell, 25, peppily asks: "Is that with wheels, or do you want to park it?" This is part of the chain's shtick: A decaf is "virgin." Ms. Weddell delivers the sunny lingo with great enthusiasm - because, she says, she loves her job: "I like that [this]café reflects the neighbourhood it's in. I used to work at another coffee chain which shall remain nameless, and it was the opposite: They'd bring exactly the same thing to every location."
Indeed, there's a mural on the back wall that depicts the CityPlace neighbourhood's Vancouveresque high-rises. But Mr. Lorenzo's main pitch to the area - with its crowd of condo-dwelling singletons - is still a sense of community. "[There are]a lot of bright people living within 700 square feet," Mr. Lorenzo says. "They feel very constrained. They want a nice place to come to, meet, and use their laptops."
But despite Toronto's recent boom of independently owned coffee shops, Mr. Lorenzo figures there's more room for him to expand in the city. He plans two other outlets here this year. "There is a need for cafés, real cafés," he says. "Starbucks has good coffee - I take my hat off to them - but it's not designed for you to sit.
"A café doesn't just put people behind a table. It takes you beyond the table."
Alex Bozikovic