Queen Street West Guide

Queen Street West is the street Torontonians mean when they say a place is cool, and it is also a street that has changed its mind several times. It is a long east-west line with a streetcar down the middle, and it reads as three different neighbourhoods depending on how far you walk. Treat it as a stroll to be sampled in sections rather than a single attraction. Our advice is to start near Spadina, walk west for as long as the shops hold your interest, and stop when the street stops being fun.

The three stretches

From University Avenue to Spadina Avenue the street is the busiest and most commercial, with big chain stores and the television studios on John Street that give the block a faint media buzz. Around Spadina the live music corner begins. The Horseshoe Tavern has hosted bands for decades, and the area is also home to long-running jazz and rock rooms. A few steps south, Graffiti Alley runs behind the shopfronts between Spadina and Portland, a lane of large murals that is repainted often enough that any photograph is only a record of the moment.

Beyond Bathurst Street the shops become smaller and more individual: vintage clothing, record shops, independent designers, small galleries and cafés. Trinity Bellwoods Park sits just north of the street here, a big lawn used by locals as a shared garden when the weather is warm. Past Ossington Avenue the street turns into West Queen West, where restaurants and bars crowd the side streets and art hotels occupy older buildings. The Drake and the Gladstone are the two best known. Further on is Parkdale, which has a very different, more residential and less polished character.

How to spend an afternoon

Take the 501 Queen streetcar or walk from the downtown core and begin at Spadina. After a look at the Horseshoe corner and the alley, walk west to Bathurst and then to Trinity Bellwoods for a rest on the grass. Cyclists will find the side streets here calmer than Queen itself. From there, a dinner on Ossington or on one of the side streets is the sensible finish. This works as a long afternoon rather than a full day.

Queen West sits beside Chinatown and Kensington Market, so a west-side day can chain all three without a single transit transfer: gallery in the morning at the Art Gallery of Ontario, noodles in Chinatown, wandering in Kensington, then Queen at dusk. Its nightlife is covered more fully in the Toronto nightlife guide, and shoppers should also read the shopping guide, which compares this street with the malls and the Yorkville strip.

What to skip and who it suits

Skip the chain stretch east of Spadina if you are short of time; you can find the same stores anywhere in the country. Do not expect old buildings or historic plaques. The pleasure is present-day Toronto: people watching, small shops and the way a street changes every few blocks. It suits couples, solo travellers and anyone who likes browsing without a goal. Families with small children may find the evenings crowded, though the daytime stretch near the park is relaxed.

Timing matters too. Shops on this street keep their own hours and many independent ones open late in the morning, so a start before lunch means mostly closed shutters. The hours around sunset are the strongest slot, when browsing turns into dinner and then drinks without any change of neighbourhood.

One practical point. The streetcar can be slow when traffic backs up or when construction closes a section, so on a tight schedule it is often faster to walk the long blocks between Spadina and Bathurst than to wait. Check the TTC site for diversions before you set out, and carry a card or phone for tap payment so you can hop on and off at will. Weekend evenings are the busiest and noisiest, so if you want a quieter look at the murals and window displays, go on a weekday afternoon.