A single Toronto shopping plaza is now home to four separate coffee shops

Gourmet City, a new Toronto shopping plaza, promises to bring a number of new food and retail vendors to the area, but as of right now, it looks like one type of business is outnumbering the rest.

While elsewhere in Ontario, burger joints and chip stands have garnered attention for their uncanny proximity to one another, a new Toronto commercial development is starting to build buzz for a similar situation.

Gourmet City, nestled between Kennedy Road and Milliken Boulevard just south of McNicoll, comprises six single-storey commercial buildings offering a combined 60,000 sq. ft. of retail space and, as tenants have begun to set up shop, an eagle-eyed Reddit user points out that coffee shops seem to be disproportionately represented on the roster.

4 new coffee shops/roastery in Scarborough plaza
by u/arkw in FoodToronto

The Original Poster, arkw, notes that, on a recent bike ride, they were surprised to find a whopping four coffee shops — "surprisingly not 4 bubble tea," they joke — have moved into the plaza.

Perhaps more surprisingly, the three cafes that are currently open for business have all managed to draw a decent amount of attention to themselves.

At A.M. Coffee Laboratory, which opened in late April, a swath of inventive beverages is coming over the pass. From pistachio-matcha lattes designed to look like a farm field full of grazing sheep to a vibrant espresso with sweet corn cold foam and, perhaps most notably, a latte served at -87C, this spot has the Instagrammable-beverage market cornered.

On the west end of the strip, Coffee Ronin is a specialty coffee shop serving decidedly more muted drinks made with beans from a variety of direct-trade coffee roasters. This is the spot for avid coffee aficionados to visit.

Nestled between the two is Acoffee, which, after being founded in Unionville in late 2025, opened its doors at Gourmet City this summer. Proprietors of many a social media-friendly coffee moment, this shop's main claim to fame is its gelato lattes, wherein scoops fashioned to resemble pandas and frogs float atop espresso and milk.

The fourth cafe in the complex, Kettli & Co., has yet to open, but touts itself as both a coffee shop and tea house, so it looks like a promising option for those who prefer leaves over beans.

While four coffee shops within a one-block radius seem like a daunting prospect for the business owners and their prospective customers alike, each shop is, evidently, serving something entirely unique, in all cases far and away from your standard slapdash cup of joe, so they may be able to coexist in perfect harmony.

A.M. Coffee Laboratory, Coffee Ronin and Acoffee are all located at 3101 Kennedy Rd.