Le Restaurant

The owner is extremely nice and friendly; the place is cosy and clean. Will definitely try their all-​day breakfast next time.

I am being slightly generous with this review. Le Restaurant is a complete failure in restaurant identity and branding. It is located off Bloor’s Koreatown and it doesn’t benefit from heavy passerby traffic. In fact, they hardly get very much business from what I can see. They’ve made huge efforts in bedazzling the front of the restaurant with huge food signage, flashing Christmas lights, etc. It is a bit of a joke.
The restaurant is a «fusion» of Swiss and Chinese menu items… confused? From what I can tell, the bulk of the items are more Swiss-​style Chinese food.
But why the 4-​star rating you ask? The staff is extremely friendly and hard working. You can tell that they appreciate your business. They’re proud small business owners like many immigrants to this country. They remind me of my own parents. They have ridiculously nice Swiss coffee. Their breakfast is $ 3.99 and comes with an option of specialty drinks that will cost you at least that much at other restaurants. Unfortunately though, Le Restaurant won’t succeed with it’s current branding and vision.
Here is my advice for the very nice owners at Le Restaurant: re-​brand yourself. There’s no decent Chinese restaurant in that stretch of Koreatown. Why not become the go-​to place for cheap Chinese food? Most of your menu is Chinese anyway, just make that identity more well known — and drop the cheap breakfast and Swiss items. Why not offer order-​off-​the-​menu dim sum instead of breakfast? I bet the margins would be higher and people would actually flock there. There’s nothing like this in the area! I think an inexpensive Chinese restaurant would do quite well!
Lastly, get rid of the name. If you were to Google «Le Restaurant Toronto» it will generate more than 14,800,000 search results. It isn’t exactly an original enough name to be unique.