Little Brick
I feel very blessed to have my sister, Paula, in my city. We love to spend time together and the other day we decided to go out for lunch.
I was trying to think of a place that would be different from the usual choices we make when a new friend in my pool mentioned that they had just moved to Riverdale.
Riverdale is a lovely neighbourhood and I remembered that they have this delightful restaurant in the middle of the ‘hood’ that was once an old, brick house.
It’s been years since I’ve been there and Paula and I think that the last time we were there we were actually together!
Little Brick is a 112 year old heritage home that was opened by Nate Box who already owned 3 successful coffee shops in town.
In his own words,
“You can’t get much more of a central community that has zero amenities. If you live in this neighbourhood and you want a coffee, you have to get in your car and drive. If you need groceries or you run out of milk, where are you going to go?”
The house first belonged to J.B. Little and was built in 1903 on the site of the J.B. Little Brickyard, which helped shape the Riverdale neighbourhood after its inception in 1893. Little’s descendants lived there until 2000, but eventually the house was sold, and by the time Box found it, was being rented out to less-than-respectful tenants.”
When the house was first brought to the attention of Nate it was more of a ‘frat’ house. There were about 100 beer cans strewn about, about 50 pizza boxes on the floor, and a blow up doll hanging from one wall.
But Nate saw the potential in it and he also didn’t want to lose the history of the place.
There’s a little ‘general store’ and gift shop inside as well with products locally sourced and chosen with care.
All the baked goods are fresh daily and both of us ordered grilled cheese sandwiches on homemade bread with a small tomato bisque soup. Very tasty! I don’t remember that they had expanded to an upstairs eating area as well but there are two photos above of that section.
A wonderful old photo of the old brickyard folks and the outside area has lots of seating too.
And……it’s beautifully landscaped by the great great granddaughter of the original owner, J.B. Little!