GoodGood, an all-day cafe specializing in locally-curated coffee, beverages, snacks and everyday essentials, has been aggressively expanding its presence in the Toronto market this year with the opening of four locations and another one to come in the near future.
Kris Linney, the company’s co-founder and chief marketing officer, said a pop-up location was initially opened in December of 2021 to give the brand name some exposure in the market.
“From there we’ve moved on and we’ve built out four of what we call all-day cafes. The first one opened in St. Lawrence Market over on Esplanade. That opened at the end of February. From there we opened a second location in St. Clair West and Dufferin. That opened end of March, early April.
“Then we opened on Adelaide where our pop-up was at the end of March. We actually closed down the pop-up and moved next door to a full build out. It’s got about 2,000 square feet. It has seating. And we recently opened on Queen Street, just west of Bathurst, as our fourth location. That opened mid to end of April. So we’ve been kind of rocking and rolling. And we have one more location that’s slated to open end of July or early August and that’s at Yonge and Davisville.”
Linney said the five locations vary in size between 1,500 to 2,000 square feet with seating and a couple of them have patio spaces.
“Really beautiful places where people can hang out, grab a coffee or a drink and discover new awesome emerging brands,” he said.
“We’re evaluating some other options. We don’t have necessarily anything signed yet. We haven’t publicly announced anything. But the goal would be to open a few more locations. We’re very focused on Toronto and I think we’re really getting an understanding of the different neighbourhoods where the concept can thrive in.
“We’ve been very fortunate to be able to open in neighbourhoods that have really embraced the brand and the concept. Definitely have our eyes on a few different neighbourhoods and a few different properties. Evaluating some options.”
Linney said the company is very focused on Ontario as a region and as a whole. That will be the primary focus for the brand for the foreseeable future, at least until the end of this year. But it is interested in looking beyond the Toronto downtown into some markets in the GTA.
“We haven’t officially moved in that direction yet but our goal is to kind of build the brand in Toronto, the GTA and then Ontario proper,” he said.
“We operate what we’ve kind of branded all-day cafes. So what’s really cool about our concept is that they’re legitimately busy the whole day. You can come in the morning. We have an awesome coffee selection. Pastries. So get your morning started. Jump-started some would say. You can enjoy the traditional cafe experience. As the day progresses, we progress with the day. In the lunch time, they’re grabbing those salads. We have awesome snacks and beverages from sparkling waters to sodas. You name it. Across the board. And then after that in the afternoon we fuse into a wine cafe. We do beer. We have pizzas that we make on site.
“You can come in the morning. You can come for lunch. Or you can come in the afternoon. We have a relevant selection of products that’s always available to you and we’re hyper focused in supporting emerging brands . . . We’re very focused on connecting these emerging brands to local neighbourhoods through the all-day cafe concept. It’s been embraced really well by the community and something that a lot of neighbourhoods are going to seek out.”
Founded by Robert Kim and Linney, GoodGood’s goal is to make it easier for neighbourhoods to access their favourite makers and artisans.
Jackson Turner of CBRE is handling leasing negotiations for GoodGood’s store expansion.
