Deadpool
I Deal Coffee on Queen Goes Deadpool. Is Madras Pantry Next?
Leslieville isn't hurting for quality cafes, but it's still disappointing to see that I Deal Coffee on Queen East has closed their doors. The Queen and Ashdale location was the most recent addition to the I Deal family and arguably its nicest spot. It was larger and brighter than the Kensington and Ossington outposts and was used to supply roasted beans and baked treats to the other cafes.
Most likely it was the location that killed it though. This side of Queen near Coxwell isn't really a retail or restaurant hot spot and walk by traffic is slim. It was also never able to lure many customers from the much more bustling Red Rocket a little further west.
The closing of 1560 Queen happened quite suddenly and the owners posted a note to the front of the door. Phone calls are now being re-directed to the Kensington location.
Meanwhile, further west on Queen near Trinity Bellwoods Park, concern is mounting that Madras Pantry might be headed to the Deadpool. The dosa haven has been closed since Friday and talking to some staffers in neighbouring shops the consensus is that it doesn't look good.
Personally, I really liked the place and Charlotte gave it a favourable review when it first opened this summer. But a review from NOW Magazine wasn't so kind, calling it over-hyped and the dosas a mess. The wait is now on to see whether they're just re-tooling or whether Toronto's first modern dosa hut is a certified bust.
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I was a big fan of the Ideal Coffee in Kensington and the one on Ossington was good too but my experience with the Queen East location was lukewarm at best. Fabulous setting yes, especially in the summer when the windows were open but that's where it ended. Service was sub par and the final straw was being handed an espresso in a styrofoam cup.
Location might have been part of the problem but not the whole story.
"It was larger and brighter than the Kensington outpost"
...which it could hardly fail to be unless it was in a windowless basement closet. Unless you count the Kensington location's patio, which reminds me of illegal dump sites I used to find in the BC Interior as a kid. They should add some mattresses on the ground to complete the vibe.
Good coffee though!
I Deal has never been consistent. It's a transition coffee shop, a places that lives between the shift from Starbucks lattes to places like Sam James, Manic, ((west-end) Mercury and Dark Horse (east-end).
They fail mainly because they aren't strict about who they hire. Who cares if you can get a perfect coffee one day and the next, you get scalded milk with giant bubbles poured over a poorly packed shot with no crema. That will always hurt their image, and Leslieville has too much good coffee to let this also ran stick around.
"a perfect coffee one day and the next, you get scalded milk with giant bubbles poured over a poorly packed shot with no crema"
That's exactly what I have found after every decent coffee I have got in Toronto! Drives me nuts! I have given up asking for my preferred long machiatto, because:
- coffee will probably be burnt
- milk will probably be scalded
- it won't be 'marked' with foam but drowned in it
- it'll be made 'wet', which is to say a cappucino
- nobody knows what long, or allonge, or the like means
- I'll have to spend three minutes explaining how to make a not very tricky coffee
- I'll be charged $5 for the mess they make
I have had that coffee above made right on rare occasions... but never again in the same location, and rarely enough in the first place.
I agree not the best location. Queen and Carlaw is a better location
madras pantry is terrible...good riddance.
My 11:00 am coffees every morning, and fantastic brownies... all gone.
I can't vouch for the espresso, but the service was what kept me in every morning. (I also did like that my patio office smelled like roasting coffee all summer!)
Too bad.
Madras Pantry, please be gone!
I'm not surprised that blogto has an area that celebrates businesses going under.
And by celebrates you mean mourn, right?
This was my favourite coffee spot in the city. Of course the coffee and the ginger cookies were excellent, but what I really enjoyed most was the staff at I Deal. Damn.
The Kensington location had some pretty throrough research posted on their bulletin board justifying their use of Styrofoam. I'm far from an expert, but I believe that the gist is that the biodegradable paper cups are produced in the same factories as other paper prodecuts by International Paper, which is one of the largest producers of industrial run off waste in North America. The study concluded that the ground water contamination from these factories outweighed the environmental impact of unbiodegradable Styrofoam. It kind of makes sense, but then again it seems that the Kensington Market location is back to using paper cups.
Red Rocket Coffee rules!
There's no good reason to ever serve espresso in a styrofoam cup.
Had never sat around for a coffee, but I had been buying beans there for several months. Sad to see that location go down.
As for Madras Pantry...always liked the idea of it. However, I tried it twice, and was somewhat underwhelmed by the dosas. Lacked flavour. Possible that they were milder for the faint of heart...but that's where they lost me.
And for those searching for consistently well made coffee [and great spots to hang for a bit], I suggest Ezra's Pound or Dark Horse [East or West].
I'd heard a rumour that I Deal closed the Queen East location because it lacked any walk-by traffic, but that they've been scouting locations up on Gerrard (directly north in Little India) after the success that Sideshow Cafe is having there.
The Knesington Location is now using biodegradable paper cups. No matter what information is posted on the walls, it's what their customers what that matters.
Myself I find a great balance between frequenting Manic, the Kensington Ideal, and even that Coffee Culture!
I didn't even know this location existed, it's too bad, but really if an area simply can't support it then move on.
It might have something to to with the fact that the owners sold, or were trying to sell most of the company and moved to Costa Rica. The new owners may be contracting the operations and taking it into a new direction. Just a thought....
I'd say the location is capable of supporting a coffee shop and/or restaurant and pedestrian traffic continues to increase year by year in this area. I hope someone else gives it a shot. I Deal did have had the best coffee (and brownies) but they didn't always make it easy for customers to spend money with shorter hours and not the biggest food selection. All the same, I will miss them, wish them well and will continue to make the trek to Red Rocket for now.
Coxwell tee hee hee!
This sucks! I remember when the great Caribbean place, The Dutchpot, closed at the same location as I Deal Coffee. I live in the area, and so much want these businesses to suceed. Unfortunately, it isn't the nicest Part of Queen Street east, and the demographics keep higher-end places from doing well.
The Coffee Time at Queen and Coxwell seems to be doing well, though. Major intersection, lots more traffic, and they cater to people who don't want to pay big bucks for their morning cuppa 'jo.
Rest in Peace, I Deal :(
Sad to see Ideal close the doors. If anyone on the east side is looking to buy Ideal Beans, I know that Better Bulk 2035 Danforth sells them.
Shorter hours and untrained staff pulling inconsistent shots, go figure that they'd close. I was walking by last weekend and was surprised how much pedestrian traffic has swelled in the area. Closing couldn't be about lack of traffic. Let's hope that the next business in that location loves great coffee and cookies!
I live a few houses down from Ideal and am very sad to see it go. I was quite surprised that they closed so suddenly but now that I see the note I understand; some of the people who live in this area were really upset about the roasting and complained bitterly and often. Personally I liked it much better than the smell of shit that often emanates from the sewage treatment plant over on Eastern. To each his own I guess. I suppose the haters will be very satisfied with themselves that they drove a successful business out of the neighborhood, after all what this end of queen street needs is another empty storefront. Yes the service was up and down sometimes but up more often than not. Plus I liked the non-corporate image that they had, much less contrived than red Rocket. Thanks to the poster above for mentioning where to get beans. And to my scumbag neighbors: Fuck you. You know who you are.
FYI, brown paper went up on the windows of the old I-Deal joint last night. Here's hoping something good is on its way.
yep it's gonna be a cafe again. i walked over to see what was up and they offered me a FREE coffee while they were evaluating their brew. BTW 'Voulez-Vous Cafe' is the name and they're friendly
FYI the open secret in the neighhourhood is that IDeal's owners sold their business and moved to Costa Rica. The new owners are Merchants of Green Coffee and Dark City, both bean roasters. They never planned on keeping Queen St East open.
They actually sold to Fresh Coffee Network which is a sepeerate company than Merchants of Green Coffee. MGC imports, educates and struggles to pimp home roasting and is really the originator in this city for Fresh Roasted. FCN roasts but is more of and delivers but is more of a middle ground connecting importers to roasters to customers. MGC and FCN are owned by brothers but legally are 2 separate companies. Just sayin'
As for the Queen East i deal, it was out of their hands. NIMBYs, always the fuggin NIMBYs. It's why Toronto has no soul. Wish they'd all just move back to the burbs. In fact NIMBYs closed the Danforth dark city site and forced him out to the edge of civilization.
Oh puhlease. I-Deal was just a hapless victim of local unreasonable neighbours? How about they never really tried, they treated their coffee shop like a warehouse, they provided minimal food which stopped every time Heather went on vacation (could no one else bake?), they installed illegal roasters with no fire detection (and they had a fire), they were completely not interested in any well meaning suggestions by their customers (I heard Heather say myself, "If I hear one more customer tell me how to run my shop, I'll scream"), they did nothing to improve the place beyond what existed on Day 1, they furnished the place with stuff they found on the side of the road, they ran a filthy shop and were proud of it (we're not Starbucks you know), they left their employees in the dark towards the end (every morning when I come in, something else has been moved out overnight), and they (or the new owners) stiffed the landlord out of rent. They just never really had their heart in the location. I wish them well in their Costa Rican Surf Shop but I can assure you, they NEVER think of their old business on Queen East and I gag every time someone refers to them as victims of the neighbours. They were working every angle. Wake up and smell the coffee.
Friends in the bean business tell me that Merchants of Green Coffee / FCN, while marketing themselves as roasters and importers, actually did very little of either. IDeal on Queen East did virtually all of their roasting for them as well as import their bean.. more accurately, IDeal was importing so much bean anyway, why not bring in more pounds and sell it to MGC/FCN.
About Rob Bob's comments, sounds all likely true. No landlord would lockout a tenant unless for their not paying rent. True, the girls that worked there spoke of equipment and stuff disappearing in the night. There was also the ratty Queen Anne'ish sofa that was bug infested, but they never bothered to remove it and just let customers sit on it. Sure seemed like MGC or FCN or IDeal, or whoever owned it last, were fixing to move out in the middle of the night.
Actually Dark City is FCN's main roaster, and they roast most of the rest at their MAtilda Street location. i Deal wasn't doing most or much of any of the roasting other than for i deal locations. It is true that FCN and MGC have made more noise than impact but the facts of their business as stated above are accurate. Another accurate fact is that small companies have to work together to import coffee as it is imported by the container full. So unless you want a whole lot of 1 kind of coffee you have to buy and trade with other roasters and importers. No small coffee company has the capability to import 6 varieties on their own, the cost of storage alone would be back breaking.
I'm not sure what happened with the rent. I don't work for i deal, and am no more privvy to what actually happened than anyone else here. All I was saying is that it is unfair to blame the new owner (FCN) for a situation you have only heard about and don't have all the facts. When I heard that FCN was buying i deal (a fairly recent event, btw) they only ever talked about the Ossington and Kensington locations. The Queen East location may have already closed by that point, at least judging by the post date on this blog post).
M'eh, It's hard to have a roaster in crowded area. I'm sure the people over at the Weston factory hear it all the time, as do the bars, restaurants and live music venues all up and down Queen St.
The whole draw of I Deal was for me was fresh roasted beans. Still go there (Kensington Mkt) for the whole beans to grind and brew at home. FCN resells to other merchants (saw their coffee over Christmas at Mountain Equipment Co-Op and a gourmet grocers in the Beaches. The bags didn't smell of freshly roasted beans - likely spent some time on the shelves. All this closing means is now I have to go to the west side to get my beans. Where, regardless of ownership, the roasting hasn't changed.
Not surprised about the not-so-fresh-smelling beans. I gather that roasting is from Dark City that now roasts for MGC and may be partners in the new IDeal. MGC's Matilda location is barred from roasting by the Fire Marshall after multiple fires. Ossington had fires too, surpise if Kensington didn't. BTW, MGC touts the datestamping of all their beans to guarantee freshness, but whatever happens to the older unsold bean? Rrright! You're thinking the same as me.