While the city has seen a slew of food halls open in recent years, few are able to say they’re housed in a heritage building that takes up an entire city block.
Final construction touches such as installing signs, as well as vendors doing practice service runs, are underway at the 55,000-square-foot , a mix of cafes, bars, bakeries and offshoots of existing restaurants under one roof at 499 Richmond St. W. (at Brant Street, just west of Spadina). Slated to open to the public on July 3, it is built inside what was once a Depression-era, city-owned public works building that sat vacant for years, and coincidentally, was once the site of the city’s earliest public markets.
“Our background is in heritage properties but we’re also committed to keeping spaces open to the public,” said Eve Lewis, CEO of , the developer behind other heritage buildings as the North º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøStation (better known as the Summerhill LCBO) and the Gooderham Flatiron Building. “Many historic buildings like this in Europe have been turned into a food hall. These are concepts that people will revisit and we hope this becomes a neighbourhood place.”
Woodcliffe CEO Eve Lewis and director Stratton Townley inside the upper level of the food hall.
Steve Russell/º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøStarWoodcliffe took over the Waterworks building in 2015 with the original goal of opening in 2021, but as with most construction projects, the pandemic put everything on hold. Upon opening in July, the Waterworks Food Hall will be open Sunday to Wednesday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Thursday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to midnight.
The list of vendors includes:
•Torched sushi and hand rolls fromÂ
•Jewish-style deli and barbecue fromÂ
•Ìý²ú³Ü°ù²µ±ð°ù²õ
•Turkish delight shop  (opening later)
•Kyoto-style noodle spotÂ
•Stuffed naan from Mississauga’sÂ
•Venezuelan street food vendorÂ
•B±ô´Ç´Ç°ù»å²¹±ô±ð’²õÌý
•Kensington Market’s
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•Ice cream fromÂ
•Natural wine purveyor  (opening September)
•Civil Liberties cocktail bar offshoot  (opening later this summer)
•Christie Pits’Â
•Coffee barÂ
•Bottles of alcohol-free spirits from .
•There are also two stalls owned by Woodcliffe, Taco Lupita and Pizzeria Popolo.
Torched salmon sushi from Aburi Sushi is made using a blowtorch and a block of charcoal that gives it a smoky taste.
Steve Russell/º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøStarOutside the market on Richmond Street West is the already open Ìý´Ú°ù´Ç³¾Ìýchef Susur Lee. (The restaurant was previously on King Street West.)
The Waterworks location of Musoshin Ramen, which resembles a ramen stall commonly found in Japanese cities with six seats along the counter, will also have exclusive menu items.
“Gyoza is often eaten with ramen, and I have a lot of customers that ask for it” at the other location, says Musoshin Ramen co-owner Aoi Yoshida. “I often make it with my kids at home, so I created a recipe for a meat and a veggie gyoza” at the Waterworks Food Hall.” Ahead of the opening, Yoshida made a bowl of a special meat-lovers’ ramen topped with thick-cut char siu, marinated beef tenderloin and delicately crispy karaage in a broth using housemade miso paste, just salty enough for the chewy noodles to absorb the flavour but not too much so that the broth can’t be drunk on its own.
While it won’t be open at the grand opening, Civil Works’ Nick Kennedy says the bar, located on the mezzanine level, will have revolving guest bartenders from around the city, footage from old broadcasts of Electric Circus dance parties projected on to the walls in the evenings, as well as a machine that can alter the mineral content of water to alter the taste of spirits. “If you go to Kentucky and add water to your bourbon, you’re drinking a high-limestone whisky.”
Woodcliffe CEO Eve Lewis and director Stratton Townley at the Waterworks Food Hall.
Steve Russell/º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøStarDave Isen of Dave’s Genuine Deli says his stall is a combination of his Avenue Road deli’s best-of’s like corned beef sandwiches as well as the classic smoked meat that takes 15 hours to cook until it’s juicy and ultra, melt-in-your mouth tendered. The stall also incorporates a new barbecue concept that includes smoked brisket, mac and cheese and pulled pork. He adds that while the stall isn’t a gluten-free facility, there is a separate fryer for gluten-free fries as well as gluten-free bread and gravy.Â
“My daughter has celiac so we’re always looking for places we can eat safely,” says Isen. “I have a family of five, so it’s lots of different palates. So in a food hall like this, everyone can try new things but also have options for food allergies.”
The when it was a city-owned public works building, which is essentially a big storage space for equipment used to maintain the city’s infrastructure. (Some of the machinery and various industrial gear from that era are on display at the food hall.) Before that, the block was home to St. Andrew’s Market, the city’s third public market, from 1837 to 1900.
In addition to the food hall at the ground level, complete with pool, 15 artists’ residence units and 300 condo units above. While the windows have been enlarged to let more light into what was once a building off-limits to the public, Lewis says the goal is to maintain the integrity of the building as much as possible (think hidden condo support beams and a basement containing the pipes and ducts for the food stalls), as well as making it known that the place is open year-round. One of the food hall’s entrances opens out to the recently revitalized . Lewis also notes that the event space is on the second floor so that when it’s booked, people still have access to the food hall.
“We’re not as old as European cities, so it’s exciting to take over a building like this that a lot of people didn’t realize was here all along,” said Lewis. “You can’t get a building like this anywhere else.”
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