It is the end of an era, sort of. The Starbucks at Yonge and Bloor, the former location of Britnell’s book store, has permanently closed after 20 years of business. I was a regular, sometimes daily, client for around 13 years. The place had become part of my routine of going to the next-door Toronto Reference Library to work or study, and taking a break during the afternoon at the Starbucks while savouring my usual Tall Dark Roast (no room for milk).
I had become accustomed to frequently seeing the wood-paneled walls and counters, the art deco floor and ceiling, the friendly hellos I was greeted with by staff who knew my order by heart, and the other regulars who were often there during the same time as me. Familiar places, like familiar faces, after a while, are taken for granted, which is another way of saying that we forget their transience and value. Until, of course, they are gone.
Upon hearing that this particular Starbucks would close—a week before its final day of business—I reacted with incredulity and surprise, almost like a jilted lover who thought things were going well. What?!...No…why? The reason, I was told by staff—unsurprisingly for Toronto—is condos. A huge development will soon begin on that corner, and that Starbucks—my Starbucks—is one of the causalities.
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| You will be missed |
An impending termination of something valued that one thought would last indefinitely naturally triggers a flood of memories and emotions. There were the many first dates at that location, most of which led to nothing, but a few of which resulted in valuable and enduring relationships. There was the Saturday afternoon get togethers with my friends—pretty much every Saturday for 13 years—where we would talk and debate politics over coffee. There was the stupid argument with my teenage daughter in 2018 from which we have still not fully recovered. There was the regular drama of watching the staff struggle with drug addicts who would lock themselves in the bathroom to get their fix, while queuing patrons waited, annoyed and frustrated, to relieve themselves.
Over the years, the routine of going to this Starbucks had generated contacts, experiences, and memories which became part of my life. While things hummed along, I was unconscious of this. Then it was gone, and it was at that moment that I realized that value accrues to things by merely lasting despite life’s oscillating rhythms and ruptures. Continuity within the context of change allows people and things to grow together, and in the process, become emotionally entangled.
And this dynamic is more and more being lost as Toronto rapidly develops. As a native of the city, I have seen, experienced, and benefited from the rapid changes of the past 20 years. Who, for example, misses the grey and dour parking lots which used to scar the downtown landscape? Every now and then I have read articles about some old and valued restaurant or café about to close because of condo developments. But they remained abstractions, because I never patronized them. Besides, I am living in a new and comfy condo myself, close to downtown, which increases in value every year to boot. Stop whining!
Easier said than done. The closing of this Starbucks made me realize that change is not always necessarily good, that development comes with costs, even if they are not necessarily quantifiable. Now, it seems, change is so rapid, that fewer and fewer things develop that sense of specialness which occurs from mere continuity and regularity of contact. Everything is increasingly reduced to economic calculation and utility, meaning that, once things are no longer deemed profitable, they are whisked away, as it were, into oblivion, in order to make space for the next new and more profitable thing.
Meanwhile, I have found a new Starbucks just around the corner from the Toronto Reference Library. But it will take a long time, plus many joys and disappointments, before it becomes special.
