A bustling bistro in the city’s east end is watching the lucrative summer patio season slip away, as it waits on a permit denied over undisclosed objections from two neighbours.
Tiarrés Brunch & Bistro opened its Beaches location in 2024, and operated its 80-seat sidewalk café — with a permit — for four months last summer.
But this year, owner Anotha Thamesh has been forced to take her proposal for the same patio to the appeal level, after two of 47 neighbours objected to her application.
“We just have a beautiful space that we can’t really use,” Thamesh told CTV News Toronto.
“We are a family business, we’re not a bar. We don’t cause any trouble to the neighbourhood,” she said, noting that the brunch restaurant closes at 8 p.m. on weeknights and 9 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.
“Yet, it’s been it’s been a roller coaster trying to get a permit.”
Thamesh said she began the permit process for the 78 square metre sidewalk patio at 1980 Queen Street East in February. According to city officials, the application was complete in April.
A bylaw requires residents living within 30 metres of a restaurant to be notified of the application by mail, and two of the 47 people living within that distance of Tiarrés Brunch & Bistro objected.
Dozens of curb-lane and sidewalk cafés currently operate out of other restaurants along Queen Street, and the previous restaurants that tenanted the Tiarrés location also operated a patio in the same location.
The city would not disclose the nature of the two complaints to Thamesh or to CTV News, but automatically rejected the Tiarrés patio application due to the opposition from “multiple” neighbours. Thamesh was notified in June.
‘The default answer at the City of Toronto is too often no,” Beaches East-York Councillor Brad Bradford said Friday, blaming red tape and roadblocks.
“We have to find a way to get to ‘yes’ faster. We have to find a way to support small business mom-and-pop shops, restaurants like this one, to help give them a shot to succeed in this city,”
“It would be nice if we could have an easier process through the city,” said Lori Van Soelen, coordinator of The Beach BIA, who stressed that patio season is critical to the viability of restaurants operating in the neighbourhood.
“It’s such a short season, and sometimes that’s the difference between them getting through the winter,” she said.
“Their biggest profits are in the summer on patios… that is the difference for them surviving.”
The summertime seating is a “must” for the financial sustainability of her restaurant, echoed Thamesh, who points out that she invested significant capital in cleaning up the exterior of what had previously been an abandoned restaurant and patio, adding value to the street.
Toronto and East York Community Council will consider Thamesh’s appeal next week, and the two objections to the application will be disclosed then, according to city staff.
“I expected more from the city,” Thamesh said. “I really expected more, because they always talk about supporting small businesses.”
