A neighborhood Italian restaurant in Toronto has a new owner: a group of friends who bought the place to fulfill a lifelong dream.
It sounds like the plan for a new sitcom: Four friends, made up of two couples, buy and run a neighborhood Italian restaurant out of passion alone, but for the new owners of Frankie's Italian in Leslieville, it's just reality.
It all started when couple Sneha and Sharan went camping with their friends Kamal and Sushma and Sharan shared his dream of owning and running a restaurant.
“We met Kamal and Sushma in 2021,” Sneha tells blogTO. “Sushma and I attended the same graduate school, I met her for the first time here in Canada […] And over time, we’ve become a crew that loves food – a family away from home.”
Sharan, Sneha's husband, followed his passion for food – fostered by his relationship with Sneha and friendship with Kamal and Sushma – and decided to quit his job.
“It was an easy decision” for Sharan, says Sneha, “because it felt right.”
When Sharan shared his dream with Kamal and Sushma, they immediately agreed, says Sneha, and when he discovered Frankie's was for sale online, all the pieces fell into place.
“He went to check out and bam! Love at first sight,” Sneha tells blogTO, and despite narrowly losing out to another bidder, Frankie’s was officially theirs on September 15.
The couples don't live in Leslieville themselves, but “love the vibe” of the area, Sneha said, and hope to continue to develop Frankie's and make it a permanent part of the neighborhood.
In the months since the acquisition, the group has revamped the restaurant's brunch and dinner menus, adding new pizzas and small plates and introducing a daily happy hour on weekdays.
According to Sneha, it's certainly a community effort to keep the entire operation running, but Sharan is the main man responsible, while the other three – who all have full-time jobs in addition to the restaurant – help out as much as they're allowed to.
“Sharan is the face you will see when you walk in – she mixes drinks and is the ultimate host,” says Sneha, adding that the journey has been “a wild ride” so far.
“It doesn’t always go smoothly, but Sharan’s passion keeps us going,” she says.
And in fact, if it weren't for Sharan's passion, they might not be in this sitcom situation at all – but for these four friends, they are beyond grateful that they are, in Sneha's words, “just a bunch of friends who turn dreams into dreams.” .” Reality, plate by plate.