Beloved Toronto store quietly closes downtown location after 25 years

Another storefront has gone dark on Toronto's Queen Street West. After 25 years, Canadian furniture brand Urban Barn has shuttered its location at 610 Queen St. W., with the store recently marked as "permanently closed' on Google. 

The company has not released a formal announcement on the closure, and as of May 29, the downtown location had also been removed from Urban Barn's website.

This seemingly surprising closure adds to the growing list of businesses that have recently disappeared from Queen Street West, a stretch that now feels more like a revolving door than anything else.

Whether it's apparel shops, bars, restaurants or furniture stores, many businesses on the strip have struggled to stick around; Foot Locker, Club Monaco and Steve's Music Store are just some of the stores that have permanently closed as of late.

Urban Barn's downtown closure will likely come as a disappointment to loyal customers in the neighbourhood. Just five months ago, one shopper called it "the best furniture store in Toronto" in a Google review, while others praised the shop's "sleek and modern" pieces at "reasonable" prices.

Urban Barn is a Canadian retailer that first launched in Vancouver in 1990 and, for the past 36 years, has expanded to more than 50 locations across the country, including several in the Greater Toronto Area.

blogTO reached out to Urban Barn to find out the reason behind the abrupt closure of its Queen West location, but has not heard back as of the time of publication. 

Though the downtown storefront is now dark, Toronto customers can still shop Urban Barn at its Leaside location at 65 Wicksteed Ave. and its Etobicoke location at 181 North Queen St. For a full list of Ontario locations, you can visit their website.