Queen Street West
Bohemian strip of boutiques, galleries and live-music clubs, born from a punk-era arts revival.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Queen Street West in Toronto starts at a diner once selling raw onion sandwiches for fifteen cents, bought in the 1970s by three young Torontonians who found old booths and fixtures gathering dust in the basement. Rather than toss them, they rebuilt the restaurant around that discovery, drawing crowds to a strip written off as cheap rooms and transient hotels. You'll hear how cheap rents nearby let art students turn the block into a scene. A young chef named Susur Lee learned his trade in that same kitchen.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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