PATIOS BROUGHT SUMMER BACK

A crumbling restaurant industry, a City once full of hope and excitement now lifeless and lonely, and a team of experts with an idea to inspire a full 180.

Enter CaféTO, a program aimed at reviving the restaurant industry through the creation of flexible spaces to improve their capacity. With many establishments reduced to less than 50% of their regular seating capacity with physical distancing, all eyes turned to the public realm to offer some necessary relief to the constrained conditions.

CaféTO provided this opportunity—reclaiming space from the right-of-way to expand and create patios and parklets during the summer season. With the intensive efforts of many multidisciplinary transportation, placemaking, urban design and engineering experts, what emerged was a unique program that would come to transform the City of Toronto’s streets as we know them.