Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr Awesomesauce
I heard somewhere that the original Crappy Tire was housed in this building on Main E. Does anybody know whether or not that might be true?
|
As I understand it this was the first Canadian Tire *franchise* store.
The original store was (and still is) located at Yonge Street and Church(also Davenport!) Street in Toronto, opened by the Billes family.
The original franchise location shown in the photo was operated by the Mann family, who now own the original store, and was originally called something else lest the concept fail and tarnish the parent company.
Mann relatives also own the new large-format store at the Barton Wall (former Center Mall).
The current Main and Victoria store that replaced this one recently changed hands and is now owned by a veteran CT franchisee who is currently updating the facility to be more in line with other modern Canadian Tires.
That's what I can recall.
Kudos to the current owner of this lovely building for avoiding the rush to demolish gems like this that are still useful despite their not making maximal use of the property. The building suffers somewhat from invisibility to passers-by owing to its deep setback from the street and one-way traffic that serve to hide it from view. I imagine this will pay off well in the future. There aren't a lot of these gems going up today.
Prev
Linear Mode
