Toronto Union Station Revitalization | ?m | ?s | City of Toronto | NORR
mdrejhon
Senior Member
My dad is having a layover at Union (transferring trains). So we are now eating at Union Chicken.
Amazing eclectric crowd of condo dwellers, office workers, and students here, and people lined up out of the door.
Amazing eclectric crowd of condo dwellers, office workers, and students here, and people lined up out of the door.
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Allandale25
Senior Member
^ Looks pretty busy.
TOareaFan
Superstar
Had lunch today at Union Chicken.
Booked a table for 4 at 1 pm....when I got there at 1 had to wait a few minutes for our table...nothing outlandish but there was a sense of confusion (like I was the first person to ever arrive for a reservation on time)....got seated, friendly staff helped us through the ordering process (we told her we wanted a family/fesitval type order and we were just 4 hungry guys that were going to share)....she gave us tips on what and how much to order.....and it turned out to be pretty much spot on the quantity needed.
Food was good (if a bit unspectacular) with the exception of the cheddar biscuits which we agreed we would not order again.
As I said, place was full when I arrived, so the noon lunch setting was popular.....and stayed full through our 1 pm lunch until 2....we were in no rush and lingered to chat and laugh it up....at 2:05 it was like a bell went off and the place cleared out in a hurry.......by the time we left at 2:30 a grand total of 2 people had come in to eat (and bizarrely despite the restaurant being no more than 20% full at that time they were sat at the table immediately adjacent to ours.... a bit strange).
This place better be 100% full at lunch....and penetrate the pre-ACC event market or it won't survive......the rent relative to sales will kill them.
Booked a table for 4 at 1 pm....when I got there at 1 had to wait a few minutes for our table...nothing outlandish but there was a sense of confusion (like I was the first person to ever arrive for a reservation on time)....got seated, friendly staff helped us through the ordering process (we told her we wanted a family/fesitval type order and we were just 4 hungry guys that were going to share)....she gave us tips on what and how much to order.....and it turned out to be pretty much spot on the quantity needed.
Food was good (if a bit unspectacular) with the exception of the cheddar biscuits which we agreed we would not order again.
As I said, place was full when I arrived, so the noon lunch setting was popular.....and stayed full through our 1 pm lunch until 2....we were in no rush and lingered to chat and laugh it up....at 2:05 it was like a bell went off and the place cleared out in a hurry.......by the time we left at 2:30 a grand total of 2 people had come in to eat (and bizarrely despite the restaurant being no more than 20% full at that time they were sat at the table immediately adjacent to ours.... a bit strange).
This place better be 100% full at lunch....and penetrate the pre-ACC event market or it won't survive......the rent relative to sales will kill them.
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The work on finishing off the VIA concourse continues. They have almost finished the section still hidden behind the plastic sheets and only seem to have one small section of terrazzo flooring to replace at one of the VIA escalators. Then all of the flooring needs its final polishing They are also busily installing (re-installing?) tiles on the walls and most of the 'alcoves' are well underway.
In the Great Hall they continue to work through replacing the floor tiles section by section, I estimate they are 75% done with it.
In the Great Hall they continue to work through replacing the floor tiles section by section, I estimate they are 75% done with it.
Northern Light
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DSC
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There are good reasons why most North American stations are rather dead outside peak periods and that is that most are really only commuter stations and the number of inter-city trains is quite small at most of them. Of course, it also depends on how well the station is integrated into a City's pedestrian network. The PATH connections to and through Union Station are increasing rapidly and will make it much more a part of it here. In Montreal, the Gare Centrale is below Place Ville Marie and thus really part of their RÉSO (La Ville Souterraine), it's pretty busy most of the time.
Gare Centrale is actually below… Gare Centrale, but its street presence is so diminished, that it's hard to tell. (The station has no grand street frontage like Union, and is mostly surrounded by taller buildings.) Underground, Gare Centrale's pedestrian passages wind under the Queen Elizabeth Hotel and the 800 René-Lévesque office tower, and then you cross under René-Levesque before find yourself in Place Ville Marie. I wouldn't make the correction just for its own sake, but to say that as soon as the connections are made to feel so seamless so that you think you're under a building that you're not, you've accomplished the major task of networking. With Toronto's PATH having more daylight conditions in the area around Union Station, I don't think that it will be as easily to mix-up where you are, but what we are all hoping for out of this after all the passages finally reopen is a system that's easy to navigate and which makes the buildings all feel like they are just doors away. Here's looking forward to what will open here n 2018!
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am29
Active Member
TOareaFan
Superstar
Ended up back at Union Chicken on Monday night.....I have an out of town guest that I was taking to the hockey game...I was working Monday and he was wandering around the city......we agreed to meet at Union Station before going to the game.......I had told him about Union Chicken but warned him without reservations on a game night we might not get to try it out....but he could not commit to a time when his "exploring" would be over....so, at 5:40 p.m. on a night with a 7 pm puck drop we headed in to see if we could eat......had our choice of tables and the resto never filled up.
Early days, but (as I said above) I think this place needs to have 2 full sittings at lunch and be "reservations only" before events at the ACC to make it.
Woodbridge_Heights
Senior Member
Has the chocolate shop in the front st promenade (correct name?) I don't recall the name dxco or something like that closed up shop. Walked by last night and noticed a "Closed" sign. They would be the first casualty???
TOareaFan
Superstar
web page still shows that location.....what time did you walk by? Website says open until 7pm daily.
https://www.cxbo.ca/
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
CXBO - https://torontounion.ca/eatshop/ Supposedly open to 7pm. Honestly though, given the current state of the promenade, it would be almost embarrassing to charge rent for any of the units. Peeling ceiling, construction dust and debris, barely there lighting plus convoluted circulation makes for an awful presence.
AoD
Megaton327
Senior Member
Cxbo chocolate. I've been in the station midday, at PM peak, and on the weekends. Off peak and on weekends the store was usually empty or had one customer in it. During PM peak, Pilot and Danish Pastry House have frequently had lineups out the door and I have only seen one or two people browsing in Cxbo, never saw anyone actually purchase anything. Not much of a window display there, couldn't tell at a glance what their "thing" was, seemed like just a plain old chocolate store...looked online and indeed it looks like their offerings are very simple, but $9 or something like that for a small square of chocolate. The first day I saw it open I called it the likely first casualty, I wouldn't be surprised if you're right.
ADRM
Senior Member
CXBO is a fancy and now fairly famous chocolate store; their Kensington location is seemingly always busy, and their proprietor, Brandon Olsen (the BO of CX, with the CX being "Chocolates By") gained local food fame for his Faberge egg-esque chocolate desserts at La Banane.
If the Union location is anything like the Kensington one, it's not surprising that there's not a ton of foot traffic; people casually stopping in for a bite isn't really their thing.