This is what’s replacing a long-standing Little Portugal bar
The new day-to-night spot will serve coffee as well as African-influenced cocktails and snacks
This past weekend, Nile Coffee Club, a Black-owned coffee brand run by Sandrine Somé and Taher Elsheikh, expanded beyond its online presence, opening its first physical location in the former home of Four Stars, a long-standing Portuguese watering hole and hangout at the corner of Dundas and Dufferin.
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Nile Coffee and Bar will be a café by day and a bar by night, open daily from 7:30 a.m. to midnight (2 a.m. on weekends). And while they’re keeping the original signage as a gesture of continuity, Nile doesn’t exactly follow the formula Four Stars maintained for over 50 years. Instead of bottles of Sagres, the bar will serve drinks like coffee slushies, hibiscus-infused bissap and okra martinis.
“The brand was named after the Nile River, long understood as a channel for exchange—of ideas, culture, trade and community,” says Somé. “That same spirit flows through our sourcing, with a focus on regions across the African diaspora where coffee carries deep cultural significance.”
Many of the caffeinated concoctions—like the Mango Sticky Rice and Jelly Coffee, made with genmaicha-infused condensed milk layered with mango nectar, coconut crema and coffee jelly—are also just plain fun.
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The cocktails are also globally inspired. For example, the aforementioned okra martini, Nile’s take on a dirty martini, swaps out olive brine for pickled okra, which is stirred with vodka and earthy thyme-infused vermouth. To soak it all up, there will be snacks and sharing plates including house-made pastries, beef sambusas and a charcuterie plate accompanied by flatbreads.
Erin Hershberg is a freelance writer with nearly two decades of experience in the lifestyle sector. She currently lives in downtown Toronto with her husband and two children.
