Le Ti Colibri leaves Kensington Market
With rents rising and condos encroaching, Kensington Market’s patchwork of international shops, bodegas and restaurants is ailing. This month’s casualty is Le Ti Colibri, a teeny spot that served up home-style French Caribbean sandwiches in its backyard tiki hut. “We had been looking for a new location since it was too difficult to obtain an alcohol license where we were,” explains co-owner Kristen Procida. The Guadeloupe native (and one of our reasons to love Toronto) is thinking about opening a food truck or maybe even moving south of the border to open a new restaurant. “We’d been looking to sell the business for over a year, but one of the first buyers wanted to also buy the name, which we didn’t want to sell,” says Procida, who hopes to get back to slinging saltfish bokits sometime soon. Meanwhile, a café called Blintz and a Bong—which is announcing itself as the “home of the all-day stoner breakfast special”—will be taking over the Augusta Street space. (No word on whether or not that special is just a bag of chips with a pint of ice cream.)
![](http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://torontolife.com/food/toronto-restaurants-le-ti-colibri-kensington-market-closed/&title=Le Ti Colibri leaves Kensington Market&picture=https://torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/toronto-restaurants-le-ti-colibri-kensington-market-closed.jpg&description=[caption id="attachment_319659" align="aligncenter" width="656"] (Image: Caroline Aksich)[/caption]
With rents rising and condos encroaching, Kensington Market’s patchwork of international shops, bodegas and restaurants is ailing. This month’s casualty is Le Ti Colibri, a teeny spot that served up home-style French Caribbean sandwiches in its backyard tiki hut. “We had been looking for a new location since it was too difficult to obtain an alcohol license where we were,” explains co-owner Kristen Procida. The Guadeloupe native (and one of our reasons to love Toronto) is thinking about opening a food truck or maybe even moving south of the border to open a new restaurant. “We'd been looking to sell the business for over a year, but one of the first buyers wanted to also buy the name, which we didn’t want to sell,” says Procida, who hopes to get back to slinging saltfish bokits sometime soon. Meanwhile, a café called Blintz and a Bong—which is announcing itself as the “home of the all-day stoner breakfast special”—will be taking over the Augusta Street space. (No word on whether or not that special is just a bag of chips with a pint of ice cream.)){kind=link}
Okay, Toronto Life says that Le Ti Colibri is a “casualty” of rising rents and encroaching condos, but the co-owner herself says that the problem was difficulty in getting a liquor license at this location. Sounds like there is a disconnect between the article narrative and reality.
A liquor license might have helped them make rent.
West: 113
East: 8
Sure. But they’ve been trying to sell for over a year, and they only opened in 2012. This is a case of the business plan not working without a liquor license, not one of “rents rising and condos encroaching”.
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The first time I stepped into this place I told my friend “this place is going to close, very soon”. There was a really bad vibe in there, not what you want going for Carribean food!!!