Dark Horse Espresso Bar (Queen East)

Riverside Before the Franchise

3.5 of 5

Every coffee company that ends up with twenty locations started with one room and a couple of people who had no idea it would come to this. For Dark Horse, the people were Deanna Zunde and Ed Lynds, and the room was on Queen Street East in Riverside, open since 2006. That first shop has been replaced by a bigger one at 630 Queen East, still in Riverside, and still the café the company calls its original.

The current room sits on the ground floor of a newer condo building and makes good use of it: vaulted ceilings, an industrial edge softened with vintage touches, a long wooden bar, a communal table with diner stools in the front window and soft lounge chairs at the back. Much of the baking is done in house. Dark Horse built its name on espresso at a time when most of Toronto still drank coffee by the bucket, and this bar still pulls a proper shot. The seasonal menu leans sweeter these days, with things like an iced pumpkin honeycomb matcha, so choose your adventure accordingly.

Today Dark Horse runs cafés from Spadina to London, Ontario, and the chain feel has crept in at the edges. That is exactly why the Queen East shop is the one to visit. Grab the window table early on a weekday, order a cortado and something baked on site, and watch Riverside go by. It is a good neighbourhood café. That is not faint praise. It is the whole job.

Order this: Cortado, Espresso, Something baked in house
The damage: $
Go: A weekday morning, at the window table
Find it: 630 Queen St E, Toronto, ON M4M 1G3