Shop Local

The St. Lawrence Market North building is a fresh, futuristic new home for Toronto's favourite weekend-stroll destination

- Mitchell Fox

THERE ARE A FEW things you can always count on during a visit to Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market: a peameal bacon sandwich from Carousel Bakery, a sea of vintage tchotchkes at the Sunday antique market and people toting freshly caught fish. On the north side of Front Street, the mega-popular farmers’ market—the city’s largest—has been around since 1803. It’s changed locations a few times: to an enclosure built in 1820; a brick building that doubled as city hall in 1831; a new, south-facing structure after the 1849 Cathedral Fire; and a single-storey model erected in the late '60s. By 2008, the city decided the community fixture needed a larger, mixed-use home.