[URBAN NOTE] "Restaurants struggle in shadow of St. Lawrence Market"

[rfmcdonald]

blogTO's Amy Grief reports about how the St. Lawrence Market offers such stiff competition to restaurants in its vicinity.

Toronto's St. Lawrence Market is a popular local spot. Both tourists and locals flock to this food palace that National Geographic once rated as the best food market in the world. But the restaurant owners on the adjacent Market Street tell a different story about the neighbourhood.

A few weeks ago, Italian eatery Cresta shut down, so we decided to speak to its neighbours to see what it's like running a restaurant in the shadow of one of the most well-known foodie destinations in the city.

Aly Somani, who recently took over My Market Catch from Tom Antonosakis, has a unique perspective because he also runs Busters Sea Cove, which is inside the market.

"It's kind of like a different world even though they're right beside each other," says Somani, noting that many of the people who flock to the area want to eat inside the market; being beside it is both a blessing and a curse.

"You're kind of competing with inside," he continues. "You get a lot of spillover, which is great, but you know, it's still not considered the St. Lawrence Market, which makes things tougher." That said, by having a popular spot inside the market, Somani can send customers over to his restaurant - and he does, especially when people are looking to eat around 6 p.m., when the market closes on weekdays.