This year, as the World Health Organization declared that COVID-19 was no longer a global health emergency, the question of back-to-office has been routinely arising in our conversations with our valued clients, business partners, family and friends.

Many companies are trying to determine the right solution to hybrid work, and it has been forecasted that increasing office vacancy rates will begin to fall by early 2025. In late July this year, Avison Young reported that the downtown Toronto office vacancy rate was 12% in the second quarter, due to a lessened demand for traditional office space.

Despite this figure, we wanted to provide our perspective on a different statistic which concerns office space – the lines at our favorite lunch and coffee places in the Toronto PATH.

Throughout the pandemic, there was not a day that passed without a member of Smith Falconer Financial Group being in the office. We have experienced no lines, the lines that one can expect during a busy lunch hour, and everything in between. This has provided us first-hand understanding of the commercial real estate trends that continue to be reported on today.

Comparing these pictures below (taken in the afternoon on Tuesday, September 5^th, 2023) to our experiences from before and during the pandemic, when downtown really was empty, we strongly believe that Toronto has returned to a traditional way of working (and will only continue to do so!).

Although the lines are now longer at our favorite places, we wanted to share the lunches and coffee shops that are worth the line ups, in our estimation!

Coffee

We like to start the day with an oat milk latte from either Mos Mos, at either end of the King subway station, or Pilot Coffee Roasters, in the lobby of our building. There are ten Mos Mos locations in downtown Toronto, with a new one opening in Yorkville this year!

Lunch

We are often trying new spots as they open in the PATH for lunch, but we have five key staples that we frequently enjoy.

Chop Hop, owned by the Food Dudes, one of “Toronto’s most revered, innovative and adaptive catering and food service companies”, has a salad for everyone – even with only four on the menu! We love the Rasa, which is named after their flagship restaurant.

Soup Nutsy is perfect for a cool fall day, with rotating daily specials, our favorite being the Butternut Squash with Apples!

Fast Fresh has soups, salads, sandwiches and more, perfect for catering a lunch in one of our boardrooms.

Zen Kyoto is opening a new location in our office building, and right now we love to order the Spicy Salmon rolls from their store in First Canadian Place!

Flock is last but not least, with the best chicken soup and sandwich that we’ve tried in the PATH.

For readers who work in Downtown Toronto, we look forward to hearing about your favorite places, and if there are any that we have shared that you want to try! With the world back to normal, we are eager to see what opens up next.

Sources:

Toronto’s downtown office vacancy rate inched up to 12% in second quarter, Avison Young says - Globe and Mail

Office vacancy rate could peak in 2024 as hybrid work gains popularity, report finds - Globe and Mail