Is there a Toronto restaurant tale as tragic as that of Sky Blue Sky? The sweet-as-pie cafe, beloved for its cheap, hefty handmade sammies named in tribute to indie juggernauts Wilco, closed abruptly last May — two weeks after a new proprietor bought the business and, according to employee accounts, promptly ran it into the ground.
Since then, Sky Blue Sky’s fans have had to learn to cope with a world without Kingpins, Dreamer In My Dreams-es, and those delightful pumpkin cookies with the glaze on them. But SBS’s staff have banded together to create a tribute to the shop: A collection of T-shirts featuring Sky Blue Sky’s signature checkerboard wrappers and bold Sharpie labelling.
“SBS wasn’t just a restaurant, it was a home — a community hub, a refuge for people of all walks, a friendly hangout spot,” writes J. Mackenzie Graham, who designed the shirts. “To commemorate this place that meant so much to me and so many others in Toronto, I’ve made this set of 21 T-shirts paying tribute to some of the most popular sandwiches.” Graham adds that the plan is to share the proceeds among several staff members who are still waiting on their final paycheques from the new owner.
The sandwich names already had a certain lyricism (what with them being Wilco songs and all), but as a tribute to SBS, some of them take on an extra layer of sentimentality: “Dreamer”, or “Art”, or, most bittersweetly, “At Least…” Find them on Teepublic.
nataliam@nowtoronto.com | @nataliamanzocco
