The Toronto Star features Toronto culinary scene heavyweights, Michael Bonacini and Peter Oliver, co-founders and owners of
Oliver & Bonacini Restaurants. O&B currently boasts more than a dozen event spaces and restaurants in Ontario, including
Canoe, the acclaimed fine dining restaurant on the 54th floor of the TD Bank Tower and the
O&B Canteen, the popular King Street spot housed inside the TIFF Bell Lightbox complex.
"O&B will focus its efforts on the Bay's flagship store on Queen St. W. at Yonge St., where it plans to launch Bannock by fall 2011. The concept is similar to Canteen, with all-day, sit-down service that's quick and inexpensive."
"We are going to be the best corporately run food service business in Toronto, in Southern Ontario, in Canada," declares Bonacini. "That's part of our goal."
"Bonnie Brooks, president and CEO of the Bay, wouldn't bet against them. "Oliver & Bonacini is such a successful, respected and creative food company in Toronto that they were a logical partner in our minds."
"The O&B story starts in 1993 with a restaurant called Jump."
"Stockbroker-turned-restaurateur Oliver owned a bakery across the street from Centro, the fine-dining restaurant on Yonge St. north of Eglinton where Bonacini was executive chef."
"Oliver had spent years setting up the deal to open Jump on Wellington St. W. near Yonge St. When his chef-to-be fell through, he proposed a partnership with Bonacini. "When Peter and I opened Jump 17 years ago, we were one of very few places to dine downtown," says Bonacini."
"He describes his partner as a visionary who lives for putting deals together. Oliver describes their skills as complementary, saying Bonacini "knows all the things that I don't know that much about."
"The men gambled that they could survive on business-district lunch alone. Within a few years of opening , a landlord at the nearby TD Bank Tower begged O&B to take over the restaurant on the building's 54th floor."
read full story
hereoriginal source
Toronto Star