The South Bayview Bulldog

It was an exciting couple of hours Saturday evening at Talbot Park as Roberto Osuna attended his pitching clinic and Q and A. Here we see the gang of kids who participated and a very happy young man, one of many who has a personal memory of the event.

Great to see so many new faces interested in joining #HealthyKids! We'll be at @TP_NNO in RV Burgess Park until 9 pm pic.twitter.com/dNUdlpLKQR

— HKCCEastYork (@HKCCEastYork) July 23, 2016

Come run, jump and play @TP_NNO Thorncliffe Park Neighbours' Night Out! #HKCCEastYork pic.twitter.com/uGRYih3qu0

— HKCCEastYork (@HKCCEastYork) July 23, 2016

There’s lots of discussion on the local Chit Chat Facebook page about the departure of Wiseys Pies and Bakehouse from 874 Eglinton Ave. E at Laird, the location where it was established in Canada barely two years ago. Since then the business has been a success and its founder Gary Wise and his Canadian wife Karen have moved back to Gary’s native New Zealand to participate in the Wiseys enterprise there. The business here succeeded to another New Zealander, Anthony Spinley and his wife Jen. Now we know that Wiseys will go in the direction of supplying its products to retailers rather than concentrating on its own retail stores. How long will they be at 874 Eglinton? Very recently staff was saying the end of the year but Paddy Duncan on Chit Chat says she was told March of 2017. The sad fact is Wiseys is gone from Leaside where it had offered hope for a strong business presence on Eglinton East. Read about how the Wiseys phenomenon first came to light through the pages of the South Bayview Bulldog  Also see Leaside Chit Chat 

Hikari Sulu is gay with a family and Lieutenant Uhuru vamps Mr. Spock. And thus does the 2016 Star Trek sequel opening today in Toronto flesh out (so to speak) the crew members of the USS Enterprise. Hope that ship is a new one since the original is now more than 50 years old. Always fun.

How hot was it on Bayview Ave Saturday afternoon? It was so hot you could throw ice cubes at the patios (please) and never hit a soul. Happily, the power stayed on and there were lots of in and out cooling stops available for those who had to walk the length of the business district. Who knew walking through the cosmetics department at Shoppers Drug Mart would be so pleasant for a man? Even the diehard perpetually door-open Elegant Garage Sale had its door closed Saturday. This otherwise cool Bentley Continental GT (below) looked sweaty too although the owner was no doubt calm about the $250,000 Canadian price tag.

Over at Toronto Zoo, they introduced the Panda twins Jia PanPan and Jia YueYue to ice. What was the rush? It’s July 23 already. This shows Jia PanPan ( the brother) while YueYue was napping. Smart girl.

There was a small drama on Bayview Ave. when the fire department roared up to the Shoppers Drug Mart in the old Bayview Playhouse sirens screaming Saturday morning. What played out next was a classic rite of passage in the lives of all children. A father was waiting with his little daughter. She gripped her dad’s hand tightly. Then she apologized to the firefighters for pulling the alarm. Then everybody went home.

Leonard’s Restaurant at 220 Laird will close Sunday for the last time. It has been a neighborhood eatery and hangout for years. The staff are saying only that the business has been sold.

City news release 

Tom Gould

Tom Gould, former newsman, on air personality and vice-president of news for CTV News, has died at 84 after a struggle with cancer.  Gould spent more than 50 years in journalism with bylines across television, print and radio. He is credited with helping guide CTV’s news coverage from the time he joined the network in the mid-1960s. Gould died at his home in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

Jameson Watermulder in kitchen of Summerhill Market

Jameson Watermulder the well-known former chief chef of Summerhill Market has purchased a double building on Summerhill Ave and will start up in competition with his former employer of some 12 years. That’s the chat in drawing rooms and at dinner tables in Rosedale and related homes of Summerhill Market consumers. Watermulder, a young unknown chef from Manitoba before he caught on with Summerhill, is credited (and takes credit) for expanding the Summerhill Market catering menu and prepared food selection to more than 800 items. This page from BrandYourself which seems to be authored by him tells of Watermulder’s feats at Summerhill.

In addition to expanding the menu selection at Summerhill Market, Jameson also lead in developing and training the market’s kitchen brigade from a 15-member team to one that included 125 staff members. The combination of these two accomplishments gave Summerhill Market the leading edge to take top honors as Canada’s best Independent Grocer.

Just what the new Watermulder place will look like when finished is an open question. Right now it is a work in progress sitting between the 1 Hr. Cleaners and a flower shop. Some neighbors say it will be a cafe and others say it will sell take-home prepared food. It may do both. The site is in the small strip of places zoned commercial on the north side of Summerhill next to the CP main line and just east of the footbridge to Moore Park, a facility known to generations of kids as “The Ramp” You read it in The Bulldog

Details 

A spectacular fire in an apartment unit at 101 Glen Manor Drive off Queen Street East caused quite a spectacle for a few minutes during the Beaches Jazz Festival nearby.  Toronto Fire personnel said the fire started on Glen Manor and spread to units at the corner of Queen including a premises over the Royal LePage office. No cause is known so far  This video shows a form of explosion as the fire gets underway. Listen to the reaction of the crowd. It was shot by festival-goer Tim Fenner.