Love eating alone? A solo dining restaurant just opened in Toronto
Introverts, meet your match.
Wooden panels separate cubicles, call buttons let diners choose when they interact with restaurant staff, and phone stands sit on every table, making it completely socially acceptable to put headphones in and watch Netflix.
“In North America, eating alone is sad,” Andy Su, co-owner of Yunnan Noodle Shack with his wife Jane Yu, told CTV News Toronto, miming air quotes around the word sad.
“It doesn’t have to be.”
It’s an unconventional combination – the dim lighting of a spa, the cubicles of a library and the breezy music of a jazz club – but it works.
“We just want to be the background, the customer is the main character,” Su said, sitting in one of his restaurant’s cubicles ahead of the grand opening this week, located downtown on Baldwin Street near Beverley Street.
Su and Yu moved to Canada from China more than a decade ago. Back home, eating alone is common, particularly at lunchtime, Yu explained. But apart from ramen counters, the couple noticed solo dining didn’t exist in Toronto.
“It’s so good when you can truly feel yourself again. Probably somewhere inside of you, someone is screaming, ‘I’m here! Why’d you leave me in a dark spot for a long time?’ Have a conversation with yourself,” Su said.
Yunnan is named after Su’s hometown in southwestern China and the menu is based on dishes from there – minced pork chili or slow cooked pork shoulder paired with rice noodles, hot and sour wontons, and a pan fried egg with in-house pickled cabbage and cold rice noodles for the non-meat eaters.
Before Yunnan, Su went to law school and Yu was an early childhood educator. But as Yu put it, quoting Tom Hanks in "Forrest Gump", “Life is like a box of chocolate, you never know what you're going to get.”
The couple is aiming to open a “Yin” to the restaurant’s solitary “Yang,” next door, hopefully in June.
Su paints a picture of a Chinese bakery where they serve handmade rice balls with lemon tea. A social scene spills out onto the stairs outside where live music accompanies chatter.
“On the stairs, people are chatting. Inside, people are thinking,” he said.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Spectacular aurora light show to be seen across Canada Friday night
A rare and severe solar storm is expected to bring spectacular displays of the northern lights, also known as aurora borealis, across much of Canada and parts of the United States on Friday night.
Town of Fort Nelson, B.C., ordered to evacuate due to wildfire
The entire town of Fort Nelson, B.C., as well as the nearby Fort Nelson First Nation, has been ordered to evacuate due to an out-of-control wildfire.
Snowbirds in Vancouver for puck-drop flyby as Canucks face Oilers
The Canadian Forces Snowbirds will be performing a flyover across downtown Vancouver at the start of tonight's Stanley Cup playoff game between the Canucks and the Edmonton Oilers.
McGill University seeks emergency injunction to dismantle pro-Palestinian encampment
McGill University has filed a request for an injunction to have the pro-Palestinian encampment removed from its campus.
Which Canadian cities have the highest and lowest grocery prices?
Where you live plays a big factor in what you pay at the grocery store. And while it's no secret the same item may have a different price depending on the store, city or province, we wanted to see just how big the differences are, and why.
Swarm of 20,000 bees gather around woman’s car west of Toronto
A swarm of roughly 20,000 bees gathered around a woman’s car in the parking lot of Burlington Centre.
Video shows naked raccoon catching B.C. family by surprise
When Marvin Henschel spotted a strange and hairless creature wandering through a front lawn in B.C.'s Lower Mainland, he could barely believe his eyes.
Barron Trump declines to serve as an RNC delegate
Former U.S. President Donald Trump's youngest son, Barron Trump, has declined to serve as a delegate at this summer’s Republican National Convention, according to a senior Trump campaign adviser and a statement from Melania Trump's office.
Out-of-control wildfire prompts evacuation alert for Fort McMurray, Saprae Creek Estates Friday night
An evacuation alert was issued for two Wood Buffalo communities Friday night, as crews battled an out-of-control wildfire near Fort McMurray.