Spadina Avenue

Spadina Avenue Review

Spadina (pronounced "Spa-dye-nah"), running from the lakeshore north to College Street, has never been chic. For decades it has housed a collection of inexpensive stores, factories that sell wholesale if you have connections, ethnic food stores, and eateries, including some first-class, if modest-looking, Chinese restaurants. Each new wave of immigrants—Jewish, Chinese, Portuguese, East and West Indian, South American—has added its own flavor to the mix, but Spadina-Kensington's basic bill of fare is still bargains galore. Here you can find discounts of up to half off the prices of Yorkville stores, yards of remnants piled high in bins, designer clothes minus the labels, and the occasional rock-and-roll nightspot and interesting greasy spoon. A streetcar line runs down the wide avenue to Front Street.