Wenshu Zhang is in the business of conflict resolution. With Little Tea Pot, she has harmonized the coffee and bubble tea experience in one shop. “Before, if people wanted coffee, they always had to go to a separate place,” Zhang says. Coffee at the shop goes for $1.50 a cup, and some 40 varieties of bubble tea are around the $4 mark (5415 Yonge St., 416-222-1868
First there was DeBoer’s. Now with furniture design place Bijan Interiors open on Yonge Street, the area is becoming a designer furniture district. “In this area there are a lot of condos and houses going up,” says store owner Bijan Sirat. “There is a lot of demand.” The new location carries designers such as Brad Ascalon and Yoshi Hatano (5205 Yonge St., 416-301-2020).
If you want to see the similarities between David R. Josephson and his son Josh Josephson, it’s in the eyes. In 1935, the elder Josephson opened Josephson Opticians. “He was ahead of his time,” says son Josh. Fast-forward 75 years, and Josh — a pioneer in the contact lens world — now heads three Josephson locations (2536 Bayview Ave., 416-444-8485 ).
While Betty Barclay has just opened its first Toronto location, the German fashion line goes back a long way. The first collection in the county was released in 1955. As for fans of the line, they now have less distance to travel. “Some people told us they used to travel to Europe to buy there,” says employee Alegre Ackerman (2901, Bayview Ave., 416-221-4999).
In Iran, there are pomegranate juice places on nearly every corner. In Bayview, there’s Marouf Tochal. Named after a mountain in Iran, owner Ali Sharispouran says the new location is a good fit with the local Iranian community (5569 Yonge St., 416-877-8889).