Mark McEwan heads downtown with a new location of his eponymous gourmet grocery store

Mark McEwan is a busy guy. He’s got four bustling restaurants, a high-end catering business, a thriving reality-TV judging career and, since 2009, a 20,000-square-foot Don Mills gourmet food store that’s become very popular among chi-chi North Yorkers. Now it looks like he’s about to get a little busier. Back when McEwan grocery first opened at the Shops at Don Mills, the local celeb chef hinted that a downtown location was likely to follow. (At the time, he was apparently eying a property on King West.) Half a decade later, those plans are finally coming to fruition.

Earlier this week, McEwan mentioned the impending downtown location in an off-the-cuff tweet. Since then he’s been staying mum, but his executive assistant Jordie McTavish was willing to share a few details: “It will be downtown,” she says. “It will be a smaller version of the existing store but will still be focused on prepared foods. We’re hoping to open by the end of 2014.” For those dying to know which downtown neighbourhood is getting a gourmet grocery upgrade, you’ll have to wait a little longer. McTavish says they aren’t revealing the location just yet, other than to say that it will be “downtown central.”