San Francesco Foods will close its original Clinton Street location on Monday, Dec. 21, ending a more than 70-year run in Toronto’s Little Italy.
The decision, according to a staff member was financial. “We just haven’t been making the money we used to,” they said, adding that the closure was not the result of a single issue but a longer-term reality.
Founded in the early 1950s near the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi, San Francesco Foods began as a small operation started by an Italian couple who immigrated to Canada after the Second World War. The restaurant built its reputation on straightforward, working-class fare and later became closely associated with the veal sandwich, which it has long said it was the first to serve in Toronto.
While the Clinton Street location will close, the business itself will continue. San Francesco Foods still operates a location in Mississauga at 3045 Clayhill Rd., and each summer the brand maintains a presence at the CNE, where it serves a condensed version of its familiar menu in the Food Building.
The Clinton Street shop changed little over the decades. The menu stayed narrow, the operation efficient. Bread arrived fresh each morning, marinara was made daily and meat was sourced locally. The formula depended on volume and regulars, a model that has become increasingly difficult to sustain amid rising costs and changing dining habits.
The closure removes one of Little Italy’s longest-running food counters, but not the brand from the city entirely. For now, San Francesco Foods continues elsewhere, operating at a smaller scale than the one it once maintained on Clinton Street.
