Sideshow Café

Stop eating mediocre food and come here for the breakfast burrito. it’s delicious. Ambiance is super nice — on a quiet friday i did some work here for a few hours and it was incredibly pleasant. Coffee is also great. The décor is heavy on clowns, so if you’re afraid of clowns, beware. (If you’re not, seriously… breakfast burrito. They also have ice cream!)

Cute place. Small, but with a friendly atmosphere. I had an excellent café Americano.

Love the décor: freakshow-​esque, but still somehow inviting. It’s a nice, quiet, and relaxing place to go where you won’t be pressured to leave once you get your coffee, and the free wifi suggests this too (though it’s not an invitation to loiter, a small place like this probably couldn’t handle that).
The Americano I tried was super thick, the strongest I think I’ve had! Not going to be an everyday treat for me, but it’s sure a red-​eye drink that would wake anyone up. The dessert I had on the other hand, was decent, but probably not something I’d get again. I have heard that the savoury snacks here are good, so the next time I’m having a groggy morning and need a quick pick-​me– up, I’ll get breakfast with my coffee here.

Always warm and toasty on a cold day. Nice wee bench outside to catch some rays with a coffee in hand when the warm weather returns. They sell the most delicious blueberry scones and are the favorite coffee go-​to for people from my workplace. Good prices and not trying too hard to be hipster.

small place (5 tables) but cool
Selection of teas is about 20.
Service is friendly.
Baked goods are on the counter wrapped in plastic wrap so dunno how old but the scone I got seemed fresh.
Jazz playing in background gives it a great ambience.

This place definitely has the feel of the circus space’s clubhouse or rec room. It’s got a bohemian vibe.
Lots of pastries, all individually wrapped in plastic wrap, which is a bit of a red flag for me.
The beans are a custom blend and roasted by Alternative Grounds (Roncesvalles). The milk for my cappuccino was over-​steamed, resulting in a too hot beverage, and a slightly scalded taste. A single shot of espresso is the standard (so I had a double. The cup was too big).
If (and only if) I was walking by again, I *might* try a drip coffee… it’s harder to ruin that.

With the addition of ice cream and now an expanded and improved menu of baked goods (try the goat cheese and pepper quiche!), this is been upgraded from «It’s a nice place; I kinda like it» to a tried and true go-​to café. Bonus points for the circus school that is attached to it.

A really nice spot to hang out and, say, wait for your car to be repaired.
I came in and had a nice jasmine green tea and a vegan chocolate… pastry thingie. I don’t know what was in it, but it was delicious. $ 5 including tax and tip. Not too shabby.
The service was friendly and it was just a really pleasant little café.

You ever have a song in your head but just can’t figure it out?
I was chewing my hooves for hours at a time, couldn’t sleep for three nights.
Today while dragging along Gerrard Street East, a car across from Sideshow Café was buzzing the tune. I quickly swallowed my fried samosa and started dancing with joy!
I shook hands with the governor by the corner to mark my territory and vowed to make Sideshow Café my new stop next time I felt a caffeine jones in Little India.
It’s such an animate looking place, in the middle of a neighborhood that in ten years from now will become gentrified.
Enjoy it’s grunge and east end charm before the yuppies move in.
«God I love the smell of Napalm in the morning!»

Sideshow Café is a quaint little spot to grab a coffee, tea, or baked good snack. The menu is short and simple, but they manage to stock a large selection of teas and to my delight, more than one kind of lemonade (Will that be regular Tropicana or fizzy Limonata?).
As it is both run by and connected to the Centre of Gravity, (of which you must venture into to use the bathrooms of), the décor is appropriately circus themed. Framed photographs from fire performances, posters of clown shows, and other fun artifacts of circus life adorn the walls. For information on events, lessons, and going-​ons in the circus community, the splatter of leaflets at the front is a one-​stop shop.
Besides the few small tables and (my personal favourite) the little nook by the large windowed storefront, the limited seating is extended by the benches out front that are perfect for enjoying the warmer weather and striking conversations with friendly, but complete strangers.

An extra star just for providing better than decent coffee in my immediate neighborhood. The staff is usually pleasant. Free wi-​fi. Beware: circus performers frequent the place.

First some background about my Coffee Time Theory. I used to travel for work and in a new city I never knew when I was in a bad neighbourhood. Especially in California where a lot of the architecture is the same, I found myself where I should not have been on more than one occasion because I honestly didn’t realize I had ventured too far. Toronto is also a dangerous town for this conundrum, because you can be in super sketchville on one corner and walk 3 blocks and be in front of a yuppy condo with a starbucks in the ground floor. Anyways, to save myself from being stabbed I developed a scientific process for determining if it was okay for me to be at this intersection or not, and Greg C nicknamed it the Coffee Time theory.
The equation is (in the style of Excel, which I used to gather and analyze the data resulting in this foolproof equation): IF ((CT + TGIPD + BoW — WYRG) greaterThan/​EqualTo 2,“yes”,“no”)
Let’s define the variables in the CT theory:
CT = Coffee Time
TGIPD = TGI Pay Day (or any Money Mart)
BoW = Bars on the Windows (any establishment on the corner where there are bars on the windows. Often a convenience store with hand written signs)
WYRG = Where you are going (rationalization: if where you are going makes up 1 point of the shady corner in question, we deduct one danger point because it is the purpose of your trip.)
So… If you find yourself on a corner and it seems shady, but you read on Unilocal!San Jose that the best BBQ ever is in some shack across from a money mart and a gas station at said corner, you need to do a CTT assessment before you get out of your car. If the result is yes, then it is too sketchy for you to exit the vehicle alone, after dark (you may be okay with a friend or during the day or some combination of that). If the result is no, then get out of the car and enjoy your BBQ, but be situationally aware.
Sideshow café comes dangerously close to being excluded from my life via the CTT. Let’s plug in the variables: IF ((1 + 0 + 1 — 1) >= 2,“yes”,“no”) returns a no in this case. If there was a Money Mart on the corner, it might be daytime-​with-​friend only, but because it is ONLY kitty corner to a Coffee Time and a store with bars on the windows, the CT Theory proclaims the corner safe for visits at anytime.
Now, onto the actual review (if you’re still reading).
The good — there is a lot of cool, interesting stuff in here. Specifically:
— An interesting OM style guitar (the orchestra model is my favorite shape of guitar)
— A chair that allows people who are hard of hearing to enjoy music through their other senses
— An awesomely strange gentleman who wears a lab coat and makes the coffee
The bad:
— The coffee is not my favorite. It’s not bad and he did a nice job making my drink, but it’s no Mercury.
— They only had 2%. Not sure if that was just today or always.
— I got over 10 $ in toonies for change. (If there WAS a money mart maybe they would have more change… hmmm)
— It is on an incredibly sketchy corner across from a Coffee Time and a store with bars on the windows.
— There is no parking.
I might go here again but probably not.

In a sea of traffic ticket rebuttal shops along Gerrard Street, Sideshow Café goes practically unnoticed.
It’s tiny (10 seats), it’s attached to the circus school that you didn’t even realize existed, and it’s an awesome place to get work done, because no one will ever find you here.
They have tea with cute overload names like tranquility, vitality, levity, serendipity and so on. The barista was wearing a lab coat (apparently this space previously housed a barber shop) and called me «dude» when handing me my hot chocolate.
The music here is fabulous — I overheard The Strokes, Pixies, Beck and the Amélie soundtrack. During the day there are people milling around from the circus school next door, wearing all manner of leggings, stirrup pants, top hats and waist harnesses. Just roll with it.
Free wi-​fi (password required — just ask). Like most cafés in Toronto, it closes far too early. It’s only been open since May 2009 so I’m hoping they’ll rejig their hours to something more reasonable.

Agreed, this is not the best coffee and treats in town, but it’s a nice place, good coffee, nice staff, and, frankly, there aren’t a ton of choices right here, so it only has to be decent to be appealing, and it’s definitely better than decent.
This is not the kind of place that you should go out of your way for, IMO, but if you’re int the area, it’s definitely a good place to stop for a drink. And then of course, there’s the Centre of Gravity, which you can learn more about while you’re here.

As anyone who lives near Little India knows, there is not a single decent café in sight. Über-​scary Coffee Time notwithstanding (ask sarah l about her CT theory and you get the gist) this place is an oasis.
Just like an oasis, it’s hard to spot. It’s attached to the Centre of Gravity venue and used to be a barbershop. Thankfully, they ripped out the old fluorescent lighting and kept the original building’s character intact. Depression-​chic is the design motif here. If you didn’t look outside you’d swear you were in a dustbowl era comic book /​coffee shop. Replete with carnival illustrations and photography. It wouldn’t be out of place in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. There is a mini stage setup for open mic troubadours and poets.
The espressos have been good but not amazing. This is more the place I amble to on a Sunday morning when I am unable to make an espresso from shake.