The Avro is, as far as I know, the only bar in Toronto with three sizes of Labatt 50 available in bottle. This tiny little nook located near Queen and Broadview might have only been around for a year and a half, but it has settled into the neighbourhood pretty nicely. By design, resident friendly face and co-owner, Rachel Conduit wanted to build a community hub in the neighbourhood--and she's been pretty successful. On any given night you'll find her behind the bar fulfilling orders of said bottles of 50 or perhaps making the best caesar in the city.

She also spearheaded the East Side Icon project, a calendar highlighting some of the admirable men of the east side (all fully clothed, perverts) to raise money to rejuvenate an as of yet unspecified piece of the east end. Every dollar sold goes straight to the project and the community gets to decide where those dollars are spent.

I caught up with Rachel, pre service, to talk about community involvement, life behind the bar and, you know, strippers.

Michael Louis Johnson is a really good bartender. He does a lot of things besides pour pints of course. He's a dad to a three-year-old girl. He's a cycling and public space advocate, an actor, and he plays in three bands: the Red Rhythm, Rambunctious and the Lemon Bucket Orchestra.

And you know, he's pretty good at all that stuff. But he's a really good bartender.

For eight years he's been the friendly, personable guy running the room at the Communist's Daughter, making sure everyone is having a good time. And for the most part, everybody is. Most of that can be chalked up to personality — he's a quick wit and a keen conversationalist — but there's a little ambition hidden in there too. How else does one explain the raucous Saturday afternoons when he invites the Red Rhythm to join him on his shift, allowing him to sing and play trumpet while he tends to his customers. Or a night of BYOV (bring your own vinyl) that turns Mondays into a boisterous listening party where side A is a given, but the room votes if it's worth flipping to side B. Believe me, it can get tense.

If they keep breeding at this rate, there'll probably be a Dark Horse near you before your birthday, and the latest location seems to be doing just fine on Queen near Bathurst, in an area now known for its abundance of cafes. I've been told to be at the Queen West Dark Horse at noon, where I meet Derek, who's also in charge of the place just before the lunch rush begins. There's a quiet moment, however, so we head to the back of the shop.

Toronto is a hub of photography. In addition to being one of the most photographed cities in the world, some of the best professional and amateur photographers out there can be found roaming our streets with camera in hand. To keep tabs on all this local talent, every Saturday we feature the work of a Toronto-based photographer in our series "Toronto through the lens of."

Tommie Cheng might be relatively new to slinging drinks, but you'd never know it walking into Cocktail Bar. The always impeccably dressed bartender has the disarming demeanor of a seasoned professional.

After years in retail, he got into the hospitality industry by way of the dish pit at Cocktail Bar's previous incarnation, the Hoof Cafe. After a few months, Hoof Matriarch Jen Agg must have recognized a glimmer of said demeanor and the transformation began. He started as a server and soon enough, graduated to bar duties. Since then he's been refining that attention to detail while filling out his fledgling resume to boot. When not crafting one of the city's great Manhattans, he can be found moonlighting at Woodlot from time to time. That and, of course, working on his Star Trek DVD collection — go figure.

I caught up with him on a rainy afternoon to talk cocktails, video games and the highs and lows of hospitality.

For the last 30 years or so, Patrick Cummins has documented Toronto's changing streetscape. A thoroughgoing exercise if there ever was one, few collections rival the breadth of his ongoing project, which takes the city's vernacular architecture as its main subject. Not one for shooting monumental structures, Cummins' work offers a window into a side of Toronto that's easily lost to the grand narratives that tend to underwrite our understanding of urban evolution.

It's also easy to lose whole afternoons searching through page after page of his photos on Flickr. Immaculately organized and labeled, his images capture both the gradual shifts the streetscape constantly undergoes — the faded signs, the fresh coats of paint — and the more profound changes that happen over decades. If you've ever been curious about what Liberty Village looked like before the condos or what the Distillery District looked like before its rebirth as a tourist site, satisfaction awaits in the perusal of Cummins' work.

Earlier this week I spoke with the photographer about his project, his upcoming book, and the crucial role that Toronto plays in his artistic practice.