Toronto restaurant explains why it's saying 'no' to takeout and patio service
Toronto's "est restaurant" made headlines earlier this year when they publicly stopped working with food delivery apps, and now, owner and Executive Chef Jordan Diniz is taking things a step further.
In early 2025, Jordan Diniz told me that, while delivery had never factored into his desired concept for est, the Riverside restaurant he took over in 2022, it was a necessary evil nearly every restaurant in the city had to adopt as a means for survival in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Opening a new restaurant (or, new-ish) while much of the city was still coming around to the concept of dining in person, indoors, was hairy enough as it is, so certain sacrifices had to be made.
It was when those sacrifices began to negatively impact the quality that he and his kitchen worked so hard to ensure that he decided it was time to put the kibosh on Uber Eats, Skip and the like, explaining his stance in a post on Instagram.
It may not have been a popular decision, but as Jordan told me at the time, it was the right one, and now est restaurant is making some more, potentially unpopular, changes to the way the restaurant operates.
In a May 20 Instagram post on est's account, Jordan explains that the restaurant will no longer be offering takeout in any form, nor patio service for the 2025 summer season.
Why? In the case of takeout, it all roots back to the same reason the restaurant stopped offering delivery.
"The main reason why I got rid of takeout was because I wanted more people to come into the restaurant and enjoy the food the way I intended it to be served," Jordan writes in the post.
"If you come to the restaurant and dine in, I can guarantee the temperature of the food, how it looks, and every detail of how I envisioned you enjoying it — at its peak."
He goes on to explain that, seeing large, expensive and luxurious orders ("I'm talking about $800-900, multiple racks of lamb, caviar, rib-eyes," he writes) gave him considerable pause, knowing he had no control over how the food would arrive.
Not to mention, he adds, delivery drivers constantly coming in and out of the restaurant majorly cramp the restaurant's style, with drafts getting let in, huge backpacks getting flung around and electric bikes blocking the entrance.
"We're not doing the patios this year either," Jordan goes on to write.
"I knew I'd be losing out on potential revenue but at the end of the day, it comes back to the same thing. You're coming here for an exquisite meal and cocktails made by our team — and then here you are sitting on the side of the road, on a patio built out of two-by-fours with IKEA furniture."
At the end of the day, Jordan explains, he doesn't want his patrons' experience of est to be dining next to an orange pylon with cars whizzing less than a metre away and while these decisions could quite possibly lead to a drop in revenue, that issue is secondary to ensuring a quality experience for diners.
"For me, it's not about the money — it's about the food, the quality and what we're trying to build and achieve here," Jordan writes. "I knew I was going to take a financial hit, but it's worth it to me if it means giving the customer the best experience I possibly can."
So, now that you can't order in, you can try est restaurant for yourself, in person (gasp!) at 729 Queen East.
Fareen Karim
