Shoeless Joe's Restaurant Coming to West Hill

Evan Williams Director of Development at First Capital has confirmed that a Shoeless Joe's Restaurant will be a part of the new Morningside Crossing development. The restaurant will be built at the corner of Morningside and Lawrence.

A fast food restaurant from a chain that has not previously had an outlet in West Hill will also be an addition to the new development and will be located beside the new Shoeless Joe's.

Mr. Williams made his announcement at a joint meeting with the Coronation Community Association of West Hill and the Resident's Rising Community Association. The meeting had been arranged through the office of Ward 43 Councilor Paul Ainslie. John Alderdice, from Economic Development chaired the meeting.

Mr. Williams also confirmed that a Canada Post Office would be part of the new Shoppers Drug Mart currently under construction on the site. The cement foundation for both the Shoppers and the new Food Basic has been laid and the superstructure has begun in time for a summer opening of phase two of the development.

A Goodlife Fitness Centre will be located on the upper story of the new plaza currently under construction along Collinsgrove. This new plaza will host a new and enlarged LCBO, a Dollarama, a Bulk Barn and possibly fashion and hardware stores as well. The metalwork on the plaza has now been completed and the walled enclosing of the site is underway.

First Capital has also purchased the Blockbuster Plaza and is considering its options for these stores.

The new development will be only the second to be built to the LEEDS environmental standards and the grounds will be extensively landscaped to encourage pedestrian as well as vehicular traffic. The Community Associations pushed for a Community bulletin board along with appropriate seating and requested the developer consider a butcher shop along with a small department store.

West Hill In Love

I have to admit it, we Canadians are not known for romance. If someone were to ask you to name the most romantic people on earth, Canadians would not immediately come to mind. Might not even make it onto your list as a postscript.

"Nice people" yes we would be near the top of your list. "Polite", "clean", "nice neighbours", okay you got us.

If you're ever in a fight, a couple of our hockey players would be handy to have around. But women seldom dream of toothless lovers.

If you need comedians for the Hollywood grist mill, Jim Carey, Martin Short or Mike Myers will do just fine. They'd be fun to have at a party, but they're not romantic. Oh Hollywood did its best to make us romantic, with those singing Mounty/beautiful Indian maiden movies back in the thirties. But the Canadian Mounted Police don't dress in those red surge jackets any more, they don't ride horses and they sure don't sing. If you get stopped for a ticket in Alberta, they'll look like any other cop in North America. And the same old, same old isn't romantic.

That's what makes it so strange that the entire population of Canada should have fallen in love, deeply passionately in love. The stand in the freezing cold just for a glimpse, a taste of the ardour of your affection, kind of love. Romance on a grand scale.

With a chain of donut restaurants.

Cue Enya, dim the lights, we are about to name the object of our affection: Tim Hortons



Just listen to what Wikipeadia has to say:

"Tim Hortons Inc. is a coffee-and-doughnut fast food restaurant chain. Founded in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1964, the store rapidly expanded across Canada to become the country's largest quick-service food chain.

"Tim Hortons franchise stores are plentiful in Canadian cities and towns. As of July 1, 2007, there were 2,733 outlets in Canada, 345 outlets in the United States and one outlet just outside Kandahar, Afghanistan. Tim Hortons has supplanted McDonald's as Canada's largest food service operator; it has nearly twice as many Canadian outlets as McDonald's, and its system-wide sales surpassed those of McDonald's Canadian operations in 2002. The chain accounted for 22.6% of all fast food industry revenues in Canada in 2005. Tim Hortons commands 76% of the Canadian market for baked goods (based on the number of customers served) and holds 62% of the Canadian coffee market (compared to Starbucks, in the number two position, at 7%)."

Have sweeter words ever been spoken? Can you not feel our hearts beating. Our soldiers in Afghanistan could not exist without Tim Hortons and our troops wrote enough pleading letters to the restaurant chain that they opened a store on our military base in Kandahar province.

And Tim Horton, the man for whom the entire chain is named, was a hockey player.

If you want to find romance in Canada, just go to any Tims and look for the line-up that stretches from the counter out the door into the cold frigid morning.

In West Hill, we are not afraid to suffer for our love.

Have pity on us, we're Canadians.