New-and-improved street food restaurant is an Ontario town's 'worst kept secret'

Just outside of Toronto, a not-so-hidden gem street food restaurant recently opened the doors of a new and improved location, and the community is already obsessed.

While it seems like, in Toronto at least, everybody's trying to get into the sandwich industry these days, the opposite is true for Regan Irvine and Ricky Garcia, the owner-operator and executive chef, respectively, of Newmarket's Speak Easy Street Food.

Irvine and Garcia first worked together on Speak Easy Sandwich Co., the predecessor to Speak Easy Street Food, with locations in Sutton and Newmarket.

"The two of us have worked together for just over three years, and we have a really good insight into one another," Irvine tells blogTO. "It's great for me having someone like him who cooks some damn good food but also has all of my trust."

After a handful of years in the sandwich business, though, Irvine and Garcia decided it was time for a change. They quietly closed the Newmarket, now sole, location in pursuit of a new venture.

"We realized that just doing sandwiches in such a saturated market just wasn't enough," Irvine says. "We had a food truck and always talked about offering food truck-style meals and pricing inside a brick-and-mortar.  We thought this was the perfect time to make the change."

And, in the early days of January 2026, Speak Easy Street Food was born.

Basking in the glow of a blue neon sign that proclaims the restaurant as "Newmarket's Worst Kept Secret," the updated restaurant is exactly that: a favourite among members of the community, made especially popular by its affordable pricing on a slew of different food truck staples.

Bao buns, baked potatoes, mac n' cheese, and burgers just begin to scratch the surface of Speak Easy Street Food's diverse menu, but regardless of the dish, Irvine tells blogTO that the restaurant's philosophy remains the same: "fresh food is the best food."

"Food trucks and street vendors cook from a place of passion," Irvine explains. "They create dishes you simply can't find in a busy restaurant — edgy, bold, flavour-forward food that delivers every time."

Irvine and Garcia bring that exact philosophy to the kitchen of Speak Easy Street Food. While the business is neither on wheels nor located in a street stall, it's all about from-scratch favourites crafted from a majority of local ingredients.

In the weeks since opening, Irvine tells blogTO that the community has already been readily accepting of the new concept.

In his view, it's easy to get a person to come to the restaurant one time, but the ability to secure return visitors is the true test of success. "That's all the feedback we need," he says.

As momentum continues to build on the new concept, Irvine tells blogTO that he isn't necessarily interested in expanding into a space much larger than the cozy corner he and Garcia operate now, but the duo are exploring opportunities to introduce people beyond the Newmarket community to Speak East Street Food.

"We have had a couple of discussions with some other businesses in the industry and a couple of breweries about having a small kitchen or shop inside, so we will see what that brings," Irvine says. 

"We do a lot of pop-ups, markets, festivals, et cetera, [and] so far those have been pretty good."

In the distant future, however, Irvine does concede that he's not opposed to opening additional locations in other towns across Ontario, but for now, he says, the team has something exciting "rolling" (a food truck, perhaps?) out this summer that fans can keep an eye peeled for.

In the meantime, you can visit  Speak Easy Street Food at 248 Main St. S., Newmarket.