rev:text
| - I was in Oakville's main street downtown yesterday, so am freshly reminded of why the Beaches main street scene is such a great place to be. It's lived in, like the comfy old slippers in dishevelled living rooms we enjoyed playing in as kids -- because the ones where the parents covered the chesterfields with plastic were too neat to be fun. People arrive on Oakvillle's main street by car, which means, among other things, few coffee shops and diners.
So Mars, like the Sunset, owes its life to the street, and its view to the park that abuts the street. It's what brings me back here, as well as to the Sunset.
Although the bottomless cups of coffee and tea are welcoming, the food needs some pzazz, and also needs to make some contribution to the street that sustains it.
I love dark rye bread, for example, but the dark rye bread that comes with omelettes here, I'll bet, is wheat bread with a bit of rye and artificial coloring. Why not buy real rye bread from one of two excellent bakeries down the street. Why not find a local artisan cook to make the beans and jam. You get the point.
A restaurant can express the area it's in, with its food as well as its atmosphere. As well, it can give back to its neighborhood with what I call in my e-book, Food for City Building "backward linkage" -- jobs for suppliers. A place like this could hire several local workers at least part-time, and also up the quality and freshness of its food.
Why not get this northern italian style "co-opetition" economy started in the Beaches?
|