The 30km PATH underground network connects 50+ buildings with food courts, cafés, and hole-in-the-wall restaurants that Torontonians who work downtown guard fiercely. Some of the city's best value lunches are hidden in these tunnels — discovered only by those who work in the towers above.
Neighbourhood: Financial District · Address: Various — enter from Union Station or First Canadian Place · Hours: Mon–Fri 7am–7pm (most locations) · Price Range: $ · Editorial status: Not yet verified
The PATH’s maze of underground food courts serves up everything from Korean stews to Jamaican patties, all without setting foot outside. It’s an everyday lunch secret for tens of thousands of downtown workers who know where to find the best deals.
Unlike regular malls, the PATH’s vendors mainly serve the weekday office crowd, so prices stay lower and menus cater to quick, tasty lunches. You can bounce from a Japanese hand roll counter to a Syrian bakery in minutes, a variety unmatched by any one food court in Toronto. The tunnels themselves turn your hunt for lunch into a full-on urban scavenger hunt.
Typewriter King feels less like a store and more like the inside of someone’s beautifully overstuffed brain. You step in from the Yonge Street area and suddenly the city noise drops away, replaced by the quiet clack of keys being tested, the metallic ding of a carriage return, and the sense that every flat surface has been claimed by a machine with a past. It’s cramped, absolutely. Shelves, counters, corners, even little in-between spaces are stacked with typewriters in every colour, size, and mood: sturdy black Remingtons, elegant Hermes portables, green and cream Olivettis, dependable Royals, and plenty you’ll only recognize if you’re the sort of person who gets excited about typefaces and ribbon spools. The owner has been repairing typewriters since 1968, and that matters the second you start talking to him. This isn’t a curated retro shop run on aesthetics alone. It’s a working repair place, and you can tell. Some machines are polished and ready to go. Others are half-open on the bench, mid-revival, with their guts exposed. If you ask a question, you’re likely to get a real answer instead of a sales pitch — what model holds alignment well, which ones are better for actual daily writing, which parts are getting harder to find, why one key sticks and another sings. He knows these things the way a mechanic knows engines. What actually happens here is part shopping, part time travel, part conversation. People come in carrying family typewriters wrapped in old towels. Students and writers test out portables on the counter. Curious passersby wander in and end up staying much longer than they meant to, peering at serial numbers and trying a few lines on a machine older than their grandparents. If you’re buying one, prices can start around $50, which is surprisingly reasonable considering how much work some of these machines have had done. And if you want a little souvenir without committing to a full typewriter, the owner will type a custom message for free, which is such a charmingly specific thing that it almost feels made up until you watch him do it. Go on a weekday if you can. It’s easier to actually talk, ask questions, and take your time without feeling like you’re in someone else’s way. This is not a place to rush through. You’ll want to look carefully because there really are hundreds of machines, and every visit turns up something you somehow missed the last time — a rare keyboard layout, an unusually pristine case, a bright red portable tucked behind a heavier office model. If you’re into writing, old tools, repair culture, or just Toronto places that haven’t been sanded down into sameness, make the trip. Even if you leave empty-handed, you’ll come out with ink on your fingers, a few new facts in your head, and probably a sudden desire to write someone a letter.
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