Loyal customers and local entrepreneurs team up to create new Toronto snack bar

The couple behind a neighbourhood delicatessen in Toronto are branching out with a new restaurant concept, and it all started with a little help from some of their most loyal customers.

While I'm always in favour of exploring new neighbourhoods in Toronto, having to venture outside of your own enclave just to find a decent meal is certifiably out for 2026. 

What's in? Neighbourhood restaurants boasting offerings that appeal to the children, centenarians and everyone in between who call the area home, that are just as tasty as what you'd find at the social media star restaurant du jour.

We're living in increasingly divided times, meaning community is more important than ever, and where better to plant a seed than one's own neighbourhood? Yadda, yadda, yadda: you've heard it all before.

However trite it sounds, it's true, and plenty of restaurateurs and entrepreneurs in the city are feeling the shift. Daniel and Liana Naraine of Scarborough's City Cottage Market — a business that, admittedly, has always centred itself on local businesses — are just one example.

"Our business started during the pandemic. We opened as a local grocer that focused on supporting local entrepreneurs and food makers in the city when all the restaurants and stuff had shut down," Daniel tells blogTO.

Eventually, as the business grew, they added a cafe to the grocery store to foster a sense of community and improve the neighbourhood's walkability. The idea was a success, and members of the community, who have since become seasoned regulars at City Cottage Market, took notice.

"Recently, long-time customers of ours purchased a building for sale on our street. Their goal was simple and rare: preserve the integrity of the block, protect walkability, and ensure the space became something that truly served the neighbourhood, rather than a business that didn't align with the community," Daniel says.

And who better than Daniel and Liana to take the project on? The building's owners approached them with an offer that Daniel describes as feeling almost "too good to be true" :a two-and-a-half-year lease for their new concept before the building undergoes redevelopment, and the option to return to the new retail space once construction is completed.

The result is Bodega by City Cottage: a new food-forward concept that'll be a spot for the neighbourhood to dine on grab-and-go eats like sandwiches, baked goods and focaccia, along with prepared foods and grocery items from local businesses.

All the while, City Cottage Market will remain in business as a cafe just down the street.

"We always wanted to open a bodega, where it's a place to go, sit down, have a bite to eat. You can grab your convenient groceries and have a drink family-friendly, inclusive environment to do both of those things. So that is kind of where we are today. Our community has literally come full circle to support us," Daniel says.

Beyond the day-to-day offerings, Daniel also tells blogTO that Bodega will eventually host pop-ups from renowned local chefs, serve ice cream in the summertime and throw a series of events, all to better serve the community.

"One of the biggest, I think, failures, potentially, for other businesses, is not invoking that sense of community and giving people a reason to go somewhere, and not just opening the doors and hope they come," Daniel explains.

"So that's why we really focus on doing communal events. You know, whether it's going to be Christmas markets, farmers markets, pop-up dinners, comedy shows, all that kind of stuff is going to be housed in this building that's going to serve as a multi-purpose destination for the entire East End."

Bodega by City Cottage will be located at 1680 Kingston Rd., and is slated to open in mid-March.