For the Five Thieves, and their customers, times of change
When the moving signs went up in the windows at All The Best Fine Foods in Rosedale this month, it is safe to say the shop’s customers freaked out.
“It caused immediate widespread panic and stir,” laughs chief operating officer Susan Bowman last week.
The panic is a testament to the unparalleled loyalty of customers to the Five Thieves — a term of endearment for a block of shops on Yonge Street south of Summerhill subway station.
Since last June and at least two year prior to the start of construction, a massive restoration has seen locals fretting that they will lose their European shopping experience, the kind where you actually know your butcher by name. The upscale shops — which include a fishmonger, butcher, grocer, bakery and cheese shop — have been on the block for nearly three decades, and boast some of the most fiercely loyal customers in the city.
Launched last summer, the renovation will see an entire Victorian-era city block restored in every detail. Shopkeepers have been awaiting the transformation anxiously as well. Dust, noise, less parking and uncertainty have some business owners grumbling.
No store will close during the two-year reno; workers are going south to north, and each store will move to temporary headquarters on site as it becomes their turn.
