Toronto restaurant forced to close after 'eviction by extortion' from landlord
A Toronto restaurant owner is calling out its former landlord after alleging he was "extorted" before ultimately being evicted.
Whether retail or residential, if you've ever rented a property, odds are you've had at least one less-than-ideal interaction with a landlord: there are entire subreddits devoted to landlord horror stories, after all.
In the case of Leslieville fried chicken and sandwich shop, Daddy's Chicken, however, a conflict with the business's landlord went from annoying to outright unbelievable when the restaurant found itself evicted after refusing to pay a fee that, Daddy's Chicken believes, the business shouldn't have had to cover.
"Eviction by extortion," reads an Instagram post shared to Daddy's Chicken's account on Dec. 20, 2025.
The post includes a pair of screenshots from text conversations wherein the restaurant's owner claims the landlord gave them a two-month eviction notice after asking Daddy's Chicken, the tenants, to front $700 or more to replace a broken furnace.
Another message in the post, which allegedly contains an abbreviated version of the conversation between Daddy's Chicken and their landlord, claims that the business had previously been in a contract with someone who would have been able to fix the furnace, but, at the landlord's request, the business was forced to exit the contract.
"Also — the furnace that you are asking us to pay for is primarily for the upstairs unit; we get enough heat from our equipment," the message later reads, suggesting that the repair Daddy's Chicken was being asked to pay for wouldn't even benefit the business, but the residential unit atop it.
In the caption of the post, Daddy's Chicken claims that they were served an eviction notice following a single conversation with their landlord, where the business pushed back on the charge.
To residential renters used to their landlords being required to cover any and all repairs, this may seem like a cut-and-dry case, but commercial tenancy, as it turns out, is actually a slightly more fickle matter.
While under Ontario's Residential Tenancies Act, it's the landlord's duty to ensure the property is in a good state of repair, including all electrical, plumbing and heating systems, like furnaces, there's no such provision under the Commercial Tenancies Act.
Instead, for commercial tenancies, the responsibilities of the landlord are decided on an individual basis and outlined in the lease.
That's where the situation with Daddy's Chicken gets particularly sticky: according to the message included in the post, the business didn't have a lease because their landlord allegedly "refused" to give them one.
That doesn't necessarily mean the landlord had the right to charge Daddy's Chicken for the new furnace, but it certainly makes it harder to prove that he didn't.
blogTO reached out to Daddy's Chicken for further details on the disagreement and subsequent eviction, but has not received a response at the time of publication. There's no word yet on where Daddy's Chicken will open once the two months are up.
Daddy's Chicken was formerly located at 1276 Queen St. E.
@daddyschickento/Instagram
