Toronto’s Island Café back in business after fire, food bank donations going strong

Four and a half months after a fire gutted the Ward’s Island Association Clubhouse building and the popular Island Café it housed, the restaurant is making a comeback.

Reopening as a temporary setup, the restaurant has been operating for about two weeks since the August long weekend.

“Right away, after the fire in mid-March, Olivia Chow, our mayor, came over and was very supportive of the island community and grieving with us about our beloved building that burnt down that was very important to the whole community,” explained café co-owner Zohra Freeman-McIntyre. “And she suggested that the city of Toronto might be able to help us set up a temporary café while the clubhouse is being rebuilt.”

The family business was able to secure a temporary lease with the city to rent out a spot of land right in front of where the original café once stood.

“The whole idea is it’s a stop-gap until that building is rebuilt. So we started working on these, what we’re calling kiosks, in the spring. One kiosk is devoted mostly to coffee baked goods, some salads and wraps and then the other kiosk is ice cream and sundaes and popsicles. And so that’s where we’re at now and we’re hoping to add more and more food as the season progresses,” said Freeman-McIntyre.

A deck between the two kiosks serves as seating and wooden railings salvaged from the fire were repainted and reused to recreate the café’s signature look.

“We modelled [the kiosks] actually after some images that we found of kiosks on Hanlan’s point in the 1950s … and the blue colour is the clubhouse that blue that used to be here,” he added.

The finishing touch to what feels like a very familiar ambience is the café’s iconic stone lions at the entrance – one of the few items to survive the fire.

“The kids seem to know that that’s the place to go sit on the lion and have their ice cream. So that’s really nostalgic for me to see that because kids have been doing that since we put those lions there and they did it at the old entrance and now they’re doing it here. So it definitely feels like the café has been reborn, albeit a bit different,” said Freeman-McIntyre.

While the café has long been a favourite watering hole for residents and visitors alike, it’s also been the site of a vegetable garden since 2016 that was left untouched by the fire. The produce it grows is donated to The Parkdale Food Bank and Fort York Food Bank.

Café co-owner Maura McIntyre says the garden’s survival was a bright spot during a dark time.

“The garden really gave us hope, I think, throughout the spring. I mean, we were working hard on the construction of the temporary café, but keeping the [garden] project going and keeping the food security aspect of our lives going felt really important,” she said.

McIntyre adds it’s been a phenomenal growing season for them and they are set to have a record year.

“There’s been a lot of heat. There’s been a lot of rain, and so in fact, we’ve donated more than we have in other years … we started donating in May and we’ve already donated more than 3,000 bundles of kale … I would guess that we probably have two and a half, 3,000 more to go,” she said.

Returning customers CityNews spoke to said they were delighted to see the garden and the café flourishing again.

“I’m not surprised that they were able to pull this together. I think the family that runs this building have a real knack for making beautiful, welcoming places, and I think that the temporary café behind me really exemplifies that,” said former employee and regular customer Ivy Farquhar-McDonnell.

Long-time customer Paul Di Proespero says he became emotional when he first heard of the fire.

“I cried a little bit. It was quite sad. It was a big loss. It’s such a big part of Wards Island,” he said. “It’s so wonderful to see it lively and there’s people here and it’s nice to see it [like this]. It brings me like, joy.”

Freeman-McIntyre says the café will remain open for the rest of the season, until the end of October.