Patio Thunderdome

Café de Flore, the best patio in the world.

When you live in Toronto, beautiful summer days are more anticipated than new Rob Ford crack videos.  And more rare! You'll see idiots in skate shorts as soon as the temperature stays above freezing for more than 3 consecutive days.  Then, we start eyeing patios, waiting for the furniture to come out.  As soon as it does, regardless of temperature, summer is on, baby!  Coats and heat lamps are required, but we're outside, dammit.

The past few weeks have been really glorious, so last Friday I decided to meet a few friends at a downtown patio after work.  I was not alone.  If you wait too late, you're screwed, and relegated to some inside seat where you stare out at the lucky bastards whose bosses didn't see them skip out early, or you end up on a patio in a sketchy neigbourhood, where a homeless guy will show you his infected foot while you drink your wine. I was not going to let that happen.  Bring on Patio Thunderdome.

I left work early (this is why they give us BlackBerrys, right?), and I practically ran up Bay St. to Mercatto, in the Eaton Centre.  They have my favourite central patio. Yeah, you can sometimes get accosted by homeless guys there, but it faces Trinity Square and a little park, so there's enough greenery to make you forget the concrete jungle for a while. The downtown core has plenty of options, but the ones closes to the financial centre are not my scene.  I am rarely in the mood to listen to guys in pink ties talk about how much money they make.  Those places were already crawling with d-bags, so I knew I had to get moving. I was walking with the urgency of someone trying to get to the bank to make a mortgage payment so they don't foreclose on your house.  I jaywalked, I bumped into a few people, and I ran in front of a couple clearly going to the same place as me, but you do what you have to in the Thunderdome. My efforts were rewarded.  I got there in time to grab a great table, and to be one glass of Prosecco in before my friends arrived.

Summer is precious when you live in this bitch of a climate, so I will probably be knocking people over to get patio tables from now until October.  If you see me coming, it's best to just move out of the way.  Cheers!