Toronto's Kensington Market in 2023. Kensington Market, writes David Schwartz, is a community that ties his family to their roots and reflects the culture of a growing city.Sarah Palmer/The Globe and Mail
David Schwartz is a Toronto chef and the restaurateur behind Linny’s, Sunnys Chinese and Mimi Chinese.
On my morning walks I often get stopped with the same question: “Excuse me, how do I get to Kensington Market?” It would be harmless if not for the fact that every time I am asked, they are already standing in the middle of it. Strange, isn’t it? They are exactly where they want to be, yet they don’t know it.
This is because the energy and action they are searching for is intermittent and not always there. The spark that once made Toronto’s Kensington mythical and unmistakable has dimmed, and with each passing day it edges closer to being unrecognizable. It is not gone, but it is fading, and that to me is deeply sad.
My grandparents came to Canada in the mid-1940s as Holocaust survivors with nothing but resolve. They settled in Toronto, where my mother’s father opened P&K Poultry on Baldwin Street in Kensington Market. For more than 40 years, our family’s life revolved around the Market, alongside countless other immigrant families who built their futures there.
At that time, Kensington was what it was named for, a market, but it was more than a place to buy and sell goods. It was a social market where culture, stories, and relationships were shared.
Eventually, like many storefronts, my grandfather’s shop closed and my family moved north. But all these years later, Kensington Market has remained so much more than just a place to do business for my family. It is a community that ties us to our roots and reflects the culture of a growing city.
Marcus Gee: What has become of my old neighbourhood in Toronto?
Today, I live one block from where my grandfather’s store once stood and I run a restaurant a street away. When my partners and I launched Sunnys Chinese in 2021, no location felt more right than Kensington. My heritage is woven into this neighbourhood, and I wanted to invest in its future.
Running a business here while also being a resident has given me unique insights I never had before. The balance between residents and businesses is rare, and the sense of community is unlike anything else. But the way we regulate and debate Kensington’s future is broken, and without change, the Market risks losing the very fabric that makes it unique.
All neighbourhoods change, and Kensington Market is no exception. The trouble comes when people try to freeze their favourite version of it in time, imagining it was always that way. What is needed is a healthier balance between preservation and adaptation. And while opinions differ on how to get there, residents, businesses, and visitors alike share one concern: they do not like the direction the change is taking.
Some remember Kensington as cheap; others recall it as a place to find quality at a fair price. Today, neither vision is sustainable. Quality is harder to deliver, affordability is undermined by rents and skyrocketing costs of goods, and newcomers to the neighbourhood increasingly choose chains over independents. This tension between affordability and quality, survival and sustainability illustrates why supporting and incentivizing independent businesses is essential to preserving the Market’s character.
Kensington Market has survived for more than a century because it evolved, writes Schwartz.Tijana Martin/The Canadian Press
Almost every stakeholder here agrees on one thing: chains, nightclubs and big-box stores do not belong here. The problem is that the city’s rules meant to keep those businesses out are blunt instruments. Their intention is admirable: to preserve the Market’s character and scale. But these regulations, combined with activist groups narrowly focused on the comfort and affordability of long-standing residents, have created a hostile environment not only for chains and nightclubs but also for independent operators and newcomers. Opening a viable business in Kensington Market today often means navigating the Committee of Adjustment, the city body that grants zoning exceptions, and convincing neighbours and councillors to grant a bylaw exemption. I know because I did it, spending months pleading my case and responding to the same fears. The process is also expensive: application fees, professional reports and legal costs quickly add up, making exemptions prohibitively costly for many small operators with pockets that are not so deep.
Many community groups rightly press to protect long-term tenants and affordable housing. That is undoubtedly important. But a persistent fear runs through consultations: Kensington will become the next Yorkville or the Distillery District, a market that only serves an elite few. Opponents also warn of more garbage, louder music, and rowdy customers. My experience is the opposite: businesses like mine bring foot traffic without degrading residents’ quality of life. On the street, you can hear a pin drop after 7 p.m. We run private garbage services stored well off the sidewalk, and our clientele is overwhelmingly respectful to the neighbourhood.
Marsha Lederman: Making your way around Toronto has never been such a slog
That has not stopped the detractors. The same voices raised objections when I opened Sunnys, when Grey Gardens sought basement seating, and when Café Pamenar applied for a back-patio permit. Looking back, would Grey Gardens’ extra 30 seats really have killed the Market? Has Sunnys, tucked 100 feet back from street level, harmed residents? Has Café Pamenar’s patio ruined the neighbourhood? No. Fear of the Market becoming Yorkville on one end or East Hastings on the other does not have to become reality. With co-ordination and thoughtful curation, there is a viable middle ground that preserves the Market’s culture.
As it stands, the reality on the ground is bleak but not glaring yet. On Augusta Avenue, one of the largest retail spaces in Kensington hosts a weed shop that anchors the east side while another large former grocery space has sat largely vacant for months on end. Landlords facing vacancies opt for risky short-term leases they expect to fail instead of adjusting their offered rent deals. These agreements rarely last more than six months, sometimes barely three, leading to boarded-up storefronts, eviction notices, and a churn of failed concepts. The tenants who do stick around increasingly include vape shops, pop-up tattoo parlours, unlicensed shroom outlets, and weed stores, some of which see daytime police raids and no real repercussions. Few of these tenants are actually wanted by local residents.
So who is Kensington Market for? Tourists, long-term residents, new arrivals, the unhoused, or weekend visitors who support local businesses? The answer is not simple. Some areas are unsafe for all of these groups. The equilibrium is broken.
Schwartz writes fears that Kensington Market will become the next Yorkville neighbourhood, only serving an elite few, are brought up during community consultation on new developments.Sarah Palmer/The Globe and Mail
The average commercial rent for vacant ground-level space in the Market is about $70 per square foot, on par with prime retail anywhere in Canada. Most experienced operators who could survive those numbers avoid the resistance and bureaucracy entirely. The result is high turnover, mediocrity, and empty windows where vibrant businesses should be.
The overall energy of the area has shifted. It’s becoming harder to find parts of the Market where my wife and I feel secure walking with our newborn son at certain times of day. Areas that once felt comfortable now carry a constant edge. Stepping over human waste or used syringes has become routine, and encounters with people actively using opioids are common. Neighbours who have lived here far longer voice new frustrations over items stolen from their front steps or the latest car break-in. These problems aren’t unique to our neighbourhood or to downtown life, but they have grown more pronounced.
If Kensington Market is to survive as a culturally rich neighbourhood, we need real solutions led by practical, down-to-earth government efforts that are not bogged down by bureaucracy. If the Market disappeared today and we tried to rebuild it on a vacant lot in downtown Toronto, current bylaws and development regulations would make it impossible. Protecting the market must be a deliberate choice, not an afterthought.
Kensington Market has survived for more than a century because it evolved without losing its soul. If we confuse preservation with stagnation, we will continue to wake up to more and more boarded-up windows where culture once lived. At the end of the day, it is a commercial and cultural market that has defined the area since my grandfather opened his chicken shop in 1945, and that is what it needs to remain. Kensington’s survival depends on bold, deliberate action, not fear.