One of the city’s most in-demand bar-bottle shop hybrids is expanding! From one of the first craft beer bars to a concession stand at The Royal Cinema, Volo has been growing their reach across Toronto for 41 years. The latest development comes in the form of a second Bottega Volo soon opening in the Junction Triangle.
Taking over the historic Clock Factory Building at 300 Campbell Ave., the new build will take inspiration from its Little Italy original location, serving as an Italian café-bar concept and retail bottle shop all in one — and yet, co-owner Julian Morana says, it will also be so much more.
“Campbell is going to be like a new headquarters of all things to do with Volo,” says Morana.
The need for such a headquarters makes sense when you understand how much is done through the Volo brand. The impressive resume boasts Bar Volo, Birreria Volo, importing specialty wine and beer through Keep6 Imports, brewing their own beer, and the recently re-imagined original Volo Bottega which, in itself, functions as a café, bottle shop and concession stand.
“We were looking for a space to accommodate all these little side projects that we’re doing and then Campbell came about, and it was the first warehouse, garage-type, loft-looking building that we found that had potential to also be a storefront,” Morana says. “It’s a very family-friendly area. There are a lot of restaurateur friends of ours that are opening up spaces in the neighbourhood and it’s a really cool opportunity for us to extend our retail growth in a new neighbourhood.”
As with many of Toronto’s brands, the original Bottega Volo was born out of a pandemic survival pivot. For more than 20 years, the Morana family has been importing specialty wines from around the world through Keep6 Imports, but the pandemic was the encouragement to stock more product that nobody else had. They also then branched out to specialty pantry goods, and eventually partnered with the cinema.
“I bartended and managed the bars for over 25 years of my life, and I thought Bottega gave me a new glimpse of a creative drive to explore new opportunities of how to operate a Volo in another setting,” Morana says. “It became really interesting for me to be part of The Royal Cinema because I would never have thought I would be operating a shop inside a cinema, let alone running a concession for it.”
At the new location, Morana says we can expect to find a menu that matches the original Bottega Volo, focusing on sandwiches, cured meats, coffee, and cocktail, beer and wine. But behind the scenes, it will also be a warehouse offering more storage for internal distribution and, potentially, opportunities for wholesale distribution.
“The warehouse completes that element in a way that allows us to warehouse our food imports and control the curation a bit more, which I think makes Bottega a little unique,” Morana says. “There are bottle shops, there are general stores, they all exist. I think for us, it’s about curating everything in-house that feels different and special to us.”
Though the opening date for the new location has yet to be announced, for a sneak peek, Bottega Volo’s forthcoming location will be hosting the 20th edition of their Cask Days Festival from Oct. 16–18. Named for the limited amount of time cask beer remains good after being tapped, the festival will feature over 100 Canadian cask beers, and 60 to 100 different natural wines sourced from around the world. There will also be local DJs spinning live and food vendors.
“We wanted to do something special for 20 years and Campbell is a space that we can utilize for future events,” Morana says. “So why not debut it with Cask Days?”
