Street Style: 18 looks at the bartenders and servers of Dundas West

By Frances McInnis | Photography by Jenna Marie Wakani

The spate of new bars and restaurants on Dundas West has turned the area into a magnet for the young and stylish (although the odd Portuguese sports bar or garage still bravely sticks it out against the tide of gentrification). On a recent Friday afternoon, we stopped by to check out what the new tribe of bartenders, servers and restaurant managers wear for a long night of drink-slinging and order-taking. Alongside the ubiquitous skinny jeans, we found plenty to like: a Ryan Gosling-like hair flop, a pair of floral-print ankle boots, polka dots worn two ways. The staff at the Lakeview, which has an all-black dress code, still found subtle ways to express their personal style (a blue tanktop under a sheer blouse, a pair of deliberately mismatched ear spacers). Most of the other joints on the strip are steadfastly anti-uniform—though everyone we talked to agreed there’s one unbending requirement: comfortable shoes.

Click here to see the style of the bartenders and servers of Dundas West »