http://www.torontosun.com/comment/co...22616-sun.html
The other King of Kensington
Tom's Place has collared the market for 50 years, and it suits the family just fine
By TED WOLOSHYN
When William Mihalik stepped off the boat at Halifax's Pier 21 in 1956, he couldn't have conceived what he was about to create.
A little more than a half a century later, his legacy flourishes through the determination and work ethic of his progeny, Tom. It is he who transformed William's Bargain and Second Hand Store into Tom's Place, a $10-million-a-year clothing shop which caters to some of this city's biggest shooters, right smack in the heart of Kensington Market.
So what would William, who died in 1984, think?
"He would say, 'Tommy go f--- yourself, this is a fluke,'" laughs Mihalik. "To my face, he never complimented me, but behind my back he would be very proud."
William Mihalik began his life in Canada with $5, and found a job as an assistant cook at a hospital in New Brunswick. Two years later, William moved to Toronto.
At the time Kensington Market, or the Jewish Market as it was known, was home to many immigrants, including some of William's Hungarian friends from Budapest who owned shops in the area. It was they who helped convince him to open a store. He took over a used clothing store at 55 Kensington Ave.
"Before I came to Canada in 1968, I was told that my father was a millionaire who owned a department store. When we arrived in Kensington market and saw the store, I said this can't be, there must be some kind of mistake," Tom Mihalik says with a chuckle.
Although not Jewish, his father had many Jewish friends who supported him, and to this day Tom is still very close to the Jewish community. In fact Tom has donated close to a million dollars to the Miles Nadel Centre on Spadina, where a dressing room in the centre's fitness club is named after him.
In my 12 years as spokesman for Tom's Place, I have witnessed his generosity toward Sick Kids' hospital, the Children's Breakfast Club and dozens of other charities. He also spearheaded a campaign to erect a statue of Al Waxman; the star of television's King of Kensington.
Over the years, there was much the father taught the son.
"We would travel to Montreal by bus to buy clothing. My dad would slip the driver $20 so we could put boxes of clothes on board, because he wanted the clothing in the store right away. All our deals with the manufacturers were done with a handshake," says a beaming Mihalik.
HAGGLE AND WIN
"I saw that being honest meant so much in the business world; that and selling good quality clothes at a reasonable price. We had no price tags, so customers would haggle with you, and win. If my father couldn't convince the customers his price was better, he would send them to Eaton's, and then they'd come back," Mihalik says.
After he took over the business, "I went to the top manufacturers and distributors and bought samples, clearance products, and mid-season high-end stock. The concept really kicked in during the height of the recession in the '80s. But as business grew, I started to travel to Italy and placed in season orders, along with Canadian manufacturers, all the time sticking to the same principles as my father did," says Mihalik.
Mihalik's good friend, the late billionaire Ken Thomson proclaimed: "Tom is like a walrus. He is able to make a living in a harsh environment. To sell designer clothing in a market known for fruits and vegetables is truly a miracle. He has to be the greatest Canadian I've ever met."
FAMILY BIZ
Tom's at his store seven days a week, working with his sister Annette, his brother Willy, and Tom Jr. Another son is off at university. His loyal general manager of 14 years, Paul Bourne, also plays a major role.
And, boasts Tom, "My mom is here everyday, she eats her food right in front of the cash, keeping an eye out."
I can only imagine what goes through her mind as she watches her son, knowing it all started with her late husband 50 years ago. You can't buy that kind of maternal pride. Even at Tom's prices.
Damn it, I am so sick of this Tom's Place myth! That $5 story is absolute bs!
Tom's Place is a place for those with BAD taste. Really a rip off when you consider he's paying practically nothing for his product.
Anyhow, why are journalists so lazy? Why not interview a Chinese or Columbian business person and start a "myth" about them?
I'd rather be homeless than live in a condo...but I do like watching attractive ones get built....like Thompson Residences by S+P.
5 Feb 10 condo market prediction: the $INDU & $TSX are crashing towards a double bottom, here comes T.O's condo market next!
Taste is relative, and his prices are very reasonable.
Were you there when Mihalik Sr. arrived in Canada post 1956's Hungarian Revolution? Lots of people arrived back then with nothing other than their lives and the clothes they wore.
Tom's is a success story, yet it's not a franchise, and it's fifty year family history is part Kensington's history. Tom shares his wealth and he's not a bad person. He's got a great sense of humour.
Picky. Picky.
Forget Tim's Place, the Hotbox cafe is where it's at in the KM
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/b...-location.aspx
Starbucks in talks for Kensington Market location
Peter Kuitenbrouwer
The corner of Nassau and Augusta streets is one of the storied crossroads of Kensington Market, where the produce of competing fruit stands spills onto the sidewalk. The spot lost a bit of lustre in May, when J & J Fruit Market, 234 Augusta Ave., locked its doors; a sign taped to the window notes, “This establishment is closed by order of the Medical Officer of Health.”
But what troubles some locals is the tenant who might move in. Today at the corner I bumped into Phil Pick, the listing agent for 234 Augusta, who confirms he is in talks with Starbucks Coffee to rent the location. The property owner, whom he won’t name, wants $5,000 a month.
Mr. Pick, who belongs to the local synagogue on St. Andrews Street, remembers, as a child, coming with his mother to Kensington. “We would get eggs from the chickens that were waiting to be slaughtered.”
But Kensington has changed. “It’s a trendy part of the city,” says Mr. Pick. “Old folks are getting pushed out. It’s just life in the big city,” he says.
Mr. Pick said his talks with Starbucks, “are preliminary.” Still, he says he’s turned away several people who want to rent the spot, while he seeks a “national tenant.”
Talk of a Starbucks has at least one local girding for battle. Mika Bareket, who grew up near here at Nassau and Markham streets, and worked for several years as a buyer for Type, the bookstore on Queen Street West, three weeks ago opened Good Egg, a cheerful, eclectic kitchenware and cookbook store at 267 Augusta. She wants to keep Starbucks out of Kensington.
“My biggest fear with these gentrifying neighbourhoods is that I will be an alien in my own world,” says Ms. Bareket, who lives in a house she owns in Kensington. “In the past few years I have not felt well-dressed enough to walk down College Street.”
Ms. Bareket admits she drinks Starbucks coffee, but she prefers the stuff she gets from “Ozzie on the corner” at Casa Acoreana.
“If you really want Starbucks, go up to College Street,” chimes in her mother, Eti Greenberg. “We don’t want to create another Yorkville here.”
Starbucks would face another, potentially more powerful foe: Councillor Adam Vaughan (Trinity-Spadina); Mr. Vaughan reminds me that he helped save Dooney’s, on Bloor Street West, from eviction for a Starbucks in 1996. (That didn’t slow Starbucks; these days the Toronto white pages lists 110 Starbucks locations).
In Kensington Mr. Vaughan may have a muncipal tool to battle the company: the shop Starbucks is considering sits partly on city property. “The store has a fairly substantial encroachment,” Mr. Vaughan says. “To sustain that encroachment, they will need approval of the neighbourhood.” Mr. Vaughan says he called Starbucks; they haven’t called back yet. “I want them to know that they are walking into what will be a very public and pitched debate,” he says. “What I want in Kensington are small, family-run businesses.”
A Starbucks media contact in Vancouver e-mailed me this: “My most recent records show that there are no confirmed plans to open up in Kensington Market at the moment.”
A few storefronts west of Augusta on Nassau, i deal coffee opened in 1999. At the time, owner James Fortier says, a heroin dealer lived in the basement and a cocaine dealer lived on the second floor. Mr. Fortier chose to peddle a legal drug, caffeine, which Anista Narduzzi, his longtime “right-hand woman” roasts here in the shop. They bring some beans in from farm families Mr. Fortier met on the volcanoes of Nicaragua. As we sit chatting, a line-up of people seeking coffee grows out the door. Asked about Starbucks, Mr. Fortier flashes a winning smile. “I have no problem with it,” he says. “We have a corporation, we have three locations. Where do you draw the line? Why is nobody protesting Ryder trucks [across from here]? I don’t think asking the government to intervene is ever an effective means of achieving anything.” But, he says, “I don’t think Starbucks would make any money.”
Outside the shop, Amelia Laidlaw, 23, a contemporary dancer, sat on a creaky old wood bench in the sun, drinking green tea and writing in her journal. Others in mismatched chairs leaned their feet on a giant wooden cable spool that held an ashtray; butts littered the cracked cement. It was a Kensington kind of scene. Ms. Laidlaw doesn’t want Starbucks in Kensington.
“I’m from Winnipeg initially,” she says. “There was one cool neighbourhood. Second Cup and Starbucks came in, and there’s not now a single independent coffee shop down there. Putting a Starbucks in here would go against everything that’s in the market right now.”
It is that spirit Ms. Bareket says she’ll seek to harness if Starbucks shows up. “I think we can stop [Starbucks] if we come together and work as a team, to develop an aesthetic and a vibe that we can all appreciate.”
Starbucks Coming to Kensington?
http://torontoist.com/2008/09/starbu...kensington.php
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...Story/National
MARKET FORCES: 'THE RATE OF CHANGE HAS ACCELERATED'
The new kings of Kensington
With five new high-end shops on Augusta alone, can the bohemians hold off the barbarians of gentrification any longer?
DEIRDRE KELLY
September 27, 2008
Good Egg, the new food-related bookstore that recently opened in Kensington Market, is just the latest sign that change is hatching in the reliably colourful bohemian neighbourhood.
Phil Pick, the real-estate agent who put Good Egg proprietor Mika Bareket into her bright storefront on Augusta Avenue north of Nassau Street, said four more new businesses have opened since the summer.
"I've done two restaurants, a health-food store and a coffee shop, in addition to the bookstore," said Mr. Pick, the sales representative for Esbin Realty, which manages several properties in the Market.
"I've been involved in Kensington Market for the last five years," he said, "and suddenly the rate of change has accelerated."
Chris Idrovo, owner of Pennylicks, one of the area's new cafés, said the influx has made north Augusta a high-traffic area.
"People are calling it the new Yorkville," Mr. Idrovo said as he whipped up cappuccino for customers. "You can't even park on the street any more, because it's gotten so busy."
Niche businesses like the crafts-rich Blue Banana Market, the vegan café Urban Herbivore and an older furniture store specializing in vintage modular teak, Bungalow, are changing the character of the strip. "They're getting away from the chickens in crates and the panhandlers," observed Jerry Crawford, a contractor with Sundial Properties, who said he has renovated 12 properties on Augusta, most of them storefronts, over the past six months. "It's become a lot more professional."
Change comes at a cost. Rents have doubled from an average of $17 a square foot, to $35 to $38 a square foot. Mr. Pick said that in the coming year rents may increase again, "as national brands like Starbucks, Timothy's, Second Cup or Lululemon come in to the neighbourhood," likely taking over an empty storefront at the corner of Nassau and Augusta that Mr. Pick listed last week, asking $5,000 a month to lease.
"We don't need another Yorkville," said Ossie Pavao, who runs Casa Açoreana, the bulk-food store that has been operating from the corner of Augusta and Baldwin for the past 45 years.
"There are already too many restaurants and cafés. Kensington Market is about shopping. What's left to shop for?"
"I don't think that the neighbourhood will stand for a Starbucks," said community activist Michael Louis Johnson, who helped introduce Pedestrian Sundays to the Market five years ago.
"The coffee shops that are here, like Luis' and I Deal Coffee, are community hubs. It's a community that defines itself in opposition to globalization and corporatization, everything that Starbucks stands for."
But Arja Chopra, owner of health-food store Sugar & Spice, an Augusta fixture for the past 15 years, believes that change is good for local businesses.
"The market was getting stale," she said, standing behind a counter piled with homeopathic flu remedies and sugar-free candy.
"People, like my new neighbour," she said, referring to Good Egg, "are bringing a new and different kind of customer here, people who spend money. That's much better than having a lot of vacancies, as we did have a couple of years ago, when every third store was empty."
Ms. Bareket, a former book buyer for the Queen West store Type, took over a 1,000-square-foot storefront that had housed a vintage clothing shop. Good Egg will serve up kitchen implements, serving ideas, food-storage containers, shopping bags and baskets, kitchen and dining linens, cards and food-related toys for children, Ms. Bareket said.
"I also gift-wrap, do registries and, in the new year, plan on offering small cooking workshops. I have a test kitchen in the store. Lastly, [I'm] putting together a community cookbook, proceeds from which will be donated to Oxfam."
Potsothy Sallapa, who owns 4-Life Natural Foods, a five-year-old business located just south of Ms. Bareket's new store, welcomes the changes. "It's a market," Mr. Sallapa said, calypso music pulsing in the background. "You need something fresh to keep the market culture alive."
Starbucks? In Kensington? Ugh. I don't know why I didn't see it coming but that blindsided me. All I can say is that although the area is gentrifying rapidly they had best make the windows out of shatterproof glass, at least for the first year or so until things die down.
Senior UT Member
If I visit a shopping district, mall, or shopping centre, I would prefer to see stores or businesses that do not appear in other shopping districts, malls, or shopping centres. I want different stores or businesses! Not chain stores!Originally Posted by PukeGreen
As if a Starbucks, or even 5 new national chains present in Kensington (that's still a long way off), would mean there were no longer 'different' stores there.
It's not as if Starbucks is going to Wal-Mart the coffee scene, they charge more for coffee than any other house on that strip.
I think this was the best summary of the situation:A few storefronts west of Augusta on Nassau, i deal coffee opened in 1999. At the time, owner James Fortier says, a heroin dealer lived in the basement and a cocaine dealer lived on the second floor. Mr. Fortier chose to peddle a legal drug, caffeine, which Anista Narduzzi, his longtime “right-hand woman” roasts here in the shop. They bring some beans in from farm families Mr. Fortier met on the volcanoes of Nicaragua. As we sit chatting, a line-up of people seeking coffee grows out the door. Asked about Starbucks, Mr. Fortier flashes a winning smile. “I have no problem with it,” he says. “We have a corporation, we have three locations. Where do you draw the line? Why is nobody protesting Ryder trucks [across from here]? I don’t think asking the government to intervene is ever an effective means of achieving anything.” But, he says, “I don’t think Starbucks would make any money.”
But if I was part of the Family Compact that controls the land in K-market, wouldn't I want to maximize my profits? So, the Ped Sunday's crew, imho, were "sponsored" by the F.C. (secretly) to enhance the value of their property.
I predict within five years 5 new condo/loft projects will be selling, taking out some of the Zimmerman's enormous property holdings.
The next K-market? How about Parkdale?
I'd rather be homeless than live in a condo...but I do like watching attractive ones get built....like Thompson Residences by S+P.
5 Feb 10 condo market prediction: the $INDU & $TSX are crashing towards a double bottom, here comes T.O's condo market next!
Maybe Vaughan would prefer a homeless shelter for this location.
Kensington Market is a byproduct of being allowed to coast under the radar. It didn't become what it is now because of heavy-handed councilors, or hipster nimbyism.
Trying to legislate and control its anarchic strength seems...uhhh...foolish?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...PStory/Comment
Inner-city suburbs
MATTHEW HALLIDAY
September 29, 2008
Toronto -- Re The New Kings Of Kensington (Globe T.O - Sept. 27): In the past four years, I've lived in four inner-city Canadian neighbourhoods: Vancouver's West End, Calgary's Beltline, Edmonton's Strathcona and now Toronto's Kensington Market. All four have been faced with gentrification, and the first three have been more or less turned into suburbs-in-the-city.
Kensington still feels like a neighbourhood, with its eclectic mix of incomes, ethnicities and businesses. So imagine my distress when I read this story about a real-estate agent, Phil Pick, who apparently desires to lease a vacant property, one block from my house, to a Starbucks or a Lululemon.
Sometimes, I secretly hope for a recession, to save our neighbourhoods from becoming an endless landscape of niche-y boutiques and over-priced sandwich shops. Gentrification can be a blessing for down-at-heels neighbourhoods, but Kensington is perfectly fine as it is.
I really don't want to move again.
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