The Sweet Potato, a neighbourhood natural grocer stocking local and organic produce, meat and dairy, plus gluten-free items, will be expanding this year into its second location as the anchor retail tenant at Toronto’s newest luxury apartment rental community, The Stack.
Midori Miyamoto, Marketing Manager for the grocer, said there is no firm date for the opening of the new location but it likely would be by November of this year.
The Sweet Potato has been at its current Vine Avenue location for about five years in about 10,000 square feet of space. Its second location at 730 Hillsdale Avenue East at Bayview will be about 16,000 square feet.
“We’re a local, independent, owner, natural and organic food store, “ said Miyamoto. “We’re a community-based business.”
She said the company’s focus on local produce and locally-grown foods is a good match for the neighbourhood, which is underserved in that area and has a sophisticated palate.
Ali Fieder and Calvin Holland of Avison Young are representing The Sweet Potato in its Canadian expansion and negotiated the lease deal for the retailer. The team at DWSV Realty negotiated the Bayview lease deal on behalf of the landlord.
The Sweet Potato began about 15 years ago as a small organic weekend market in High Park, in the west end of downtown Toronto. It then moved into its first location of about 3,000 square feet but years later moved the operation into its current 10,000-square-foot space on Vine Avenue in The Junction.
Jay Brown, Owner of The Brown Group of Companies which is behind the development of The Stack, said The Stack, in the Leaside neighbourhood of Toronto, is a project near and dear to his heart as it has taken so much of his time from the land assembly to the development and construction.
“It was really, really important to me that I got the right retailers,” he said. “I didn’t want a revolving door of people who go in and out. And retail is tough. It was getting tough even before COVID and COVID sort of kicked that into high gear. But I really wanted the right mix of retail and the right retailers.
“I went out to The Sweet Potato store with my wife and my daughter and I was immediately impressed at the products that they carried and the way it looked. It’s really sort of farm to table, organic, with an emphasis on healthy lifestyle brands and I was really, really impressed.
“The Junction area has a lot of similarities with Leaside. So we started talking to the owners and they’re terrific people. They’re really passionate about what they do. They’re really invested in what they do and they really seem to care and have a real pride of ownership and it just seemed to be a great fit for this building and this neighbourhood.”
The Stack has 146 apartments and about 18,000 square feet of retail at grade. The rest of the retail space of about 2,000 square feet will be taken up by Maker Pizza.
Residents started moving into the project on April 1.
According to The Sweet Potato’s website, at 16, Digs Dorfman worked after school, stocking the shelves of his grandfather’s grocery store. As a lifelong Type 1 Diabetic, Digs has always been passionate about finding tasty, healthy, and affordable food, so as a part-time high-school gig, it was a natural fit (pun intended) with his interests and lifestyle, it said.
“After a young adulthood working in the Montreal and Toronto music scenes, he surprised himself by finding his way back to the family biz, when in the Spring of 2005 he started running the High Park Organic Market,” said the company.
“Over the next few seasons, Digs began to feel more and more like a part of the community as he got to know the many kind and interesting neighbourhood residents who would pass by each week. At the same time, he began to feel more and more that eating well shouldn’t cost a fortune, and started forming strong relationships with local farmers who were just as passionate about healthy food as he was.
“But people would always ask: where are we going to go to buy healthy food once the market shuts down at the end of the season? How about a local place where we can shop year-round? So, he bought some old fridges and some old wooden shelves and opened The Sweet Potato a few months later just north of the park in a cozy little neighbourhood known as The Junction.
“Three weeks after opening, Digs hired a brilliant temp named CJ to help him organize the new office, and as it turned out, the two worked really well together. Digs asked him to stay on as an office manager, and as the store grew, CJ became an increasingly integral part of its operations. Nine years later, they’re business partners with an amazing and vibrant team of staff and managers working beside them.”
The Sweet Potato moved in the fall of 2017 into the 100-year-old building on Vine Avenue, which was just around the corner from the original location, and added a bakery, a butcher, a fancy cheese island – and space for two carts to pass each other in the aisles.
