Toronto coffee bar slashes prices indefinitely as cost of living soars
The prices of, well, everything continue to increase in Toronto, but one local coffee shop is doing its part to tamp inflation.
When Sam James Coffee Bar (SJCB), one of the city's favourite third-wave coffee bars with four locations in the city, decided to start selling their drip coffee, any size, for just $2.49 in the fall of 2025, it was meant to be a limited-time deal.
"CAFFEINE IS OUR LOVE LANGUAGE," read the Instagram post advertising the deal. "NO FAKING, $2.49 ANY SIZE DRIP COFFEE UNTIL DECEMBER 31ST."
But December 31 came and went, and the SJCB team, meant to return the prices on their specialty drip coffee back to normal just... didn't.
Instead, the coffee bar explains in a later Instagram post, after discussing the possibility of re-raising prices, "we looked around and decided not to."
"Rent didn’t get cheaper. Neither did groceries," the caption of the post explains. So, the team figured, why would their customer base be any less in need of an affordable cup of joe than they were in the latter third of 2025?
Instead, they settled on the modestly more sustainable price of $2.99 for any size of drip coffee, and the best part of all is that it's not going anywhere any time soon.
With coffee prices expected to continue their steep upward trajectory over the year ahead, independent coffee shops and chains alike are being left with little choice but to increase their own prices along with it, making SJCB's decision to slash their own a particularly welcome, albeit gutsy, one.
I'm not complaining. Pour it up!
Sam James Coffee Bar has locations in Parkdale, Little Italy, the PATH and on Ossington.
Jesse Milns
