Thursday Night in West-End Toronto
Last month marked the one-year anniversary of Mending Night being hosted at Grays, a west-side Toronto store that sells beautiful wool clothing, wine, and home goods. As the description suggests, it’s a very west-end Toronto store, and Mending Night has become a very west-end Toronto kind of night.
For those who aren’t familiar with Mending Night, let me provide a brief rundown. In short, two of my former Art Directors – Cam and Scott – bring clothing industry people to volunteer their time at Grays. Non-clothing-industry people (civilians) bring their clothes in, and the stylists and tailors and designers teach them how to mend them. Wine is served. Music plays quietly enough to be heard but not so quietly to be overheard. The store gets cozily crammed with people buzzing in intimate conversation, probably telling tangled stories of how they ripped their shirt sleeves or the family lineage of sweaters. Cam glides around the room, eagerly introducing people to each other and bringing any outsiders into the circle. Scott draws his own circle at the side of the room. Both are personalities uniquely meant to host this very specific evening.
I hadn’t been to Mending Night in far too long (it’s the type of event that makes you feel like you’re cheating yourself if you skip it, like a good run or a meal with friends). So, I rushed home from the office on Thursday evening and went straight to Grays. I walked into the store without any clothes to mend. I guess that makes me a poser, by definition. But Mending Night is a very “come as you are” environment. Everyone is too busy mending their own sleeves to worry if yours are ripped or not. And really, I was mostly there to see Scott and Cam, and our friend Peter, who used to be a brilliant food writer with me at SHARP, and is now still a brilliant food writer.
Peter and I are the same age (28), but we’ve used those years quite differently. Peter just left one of the best French restaurants in Toronto to open up his own place with Scott and a few friends. He’s proudly and overtly Greek, with a thick moustache and a distinctly cool style. When I saw him, he was wearing a flat cap, flowy black trousers, a striped Oxford shirt, and penny loafers. I wore a white cable knit sweater, a vintage Eddie Bower shirt, my grandpa’s white slacks, and my fiancée’s vintage Patagonia vest.
I asked how everything was going with the restaurant, and Peter said they were getting ready to hire staff. There are others more vested in the overarching business of Micky Limbos (the name of the restaurant, which is a perfect name, really – it sounds like the type of place you’ve always known about). But as someone who’s spent much of their career in the chaos of a kitchen, now is when Peter’s expertise shines brightest – not in the minutia of permits and partners and marketing strategies but in the real people best suited to serve real plates of food. Micky Limbos is starting to feel more real, Peter explained.
I should admit, when I say I made my way back to Mending Night, that is a technicality of the highest order. I walked into Grays, hugged Cam, and said hello to Scott. Peter and I caught up briefly before Scott tapped me on the shoulder. “We’re going to Jamil’s. Do you want to come?” Jamil’s Chaat House is a popular Pakistani restaurant that I profiled in a magazine sometime last year, but had never actually had the chance to try it; I suppose that’s akin to attending Mending Night without any clothes to mend. That made me a poser on two accounts, so I felt I needed to rectify at least one offence.
It was Scott and his brother and friends from Montreal and other friends from Toronto and Peter and then me, all spread around a table at the front of the restaurant. Peter and I were on opposite ends of the long table, but after a few drinks and unconventional Pakistani dishes, seats were juggled, and Peter was beside me. I lamented that I missed editing his writing, and he lamented that he never made his deadlines. But Peter is one of the few writers for whom missing deadlines is an essential part of the process. His work is best suited to wandering around. My favourite piece he ever wrote was about his return to Athens to visit family, where he described how a new natural wine craze was transforming the city’s culture. His first draft was a rhythmic collection of colourfully descriptive sentences, with broken syntax and incomplete clauses forming a fully formed picture of an ancient city being pulled into a new age. My least favourite piece he ever wrote was a sponsored interview that I asked him to write. The copy was clean, and it came in on time. He understood the blueprint for pleasing a client, and he drew it in black and white with straight lines.
Peter stopped writing for us for two reasons: mostly, because Scott left as Art Director, and the two of them shifted their focus to Mickey Limbos. And also, more reactively, after Scott left, my colleagues sought out writers who were more accustomed to writing in exclusively straight lines. On Mending Night, I told Peter I was glad I didn’t water down his writing with our hard due dates and clear blueprints. Sometimes, I think the ability to write in your own voice is a muscle threatening to atrophy with each straight line.
Earlier, I wrote that Peter and I have used our 28 years differently. I suppose I mean that in the most obvious of senses; Peter thrives in culinary chaos, I’ve bounced from one tidy office to the next; his long nights stretch into early mornings, my early mornings stretch into long days; he’s drawn his own blueprints, I’ve all but earned a PhD in refining others’.
Although, as Peter and I were finishing our last drink at Jamil’s, he said he suspected we’d both always been called mature for our age. I laughed and realized he was right. We both dress like our grandfathers and have an unnecessary and undying commitment to manners and formality. The first time Peter visited our office as a freelancer, he gave a formal introduction to practically the entire office, like a dignitary greeting foreign government officials. I’m sure I stood up and shook his hand in a similarly formal fashion. We’ve both been very committed to what we do for a very long time (him, cooking and hosting; me, writing and sitting in an office). And now, Peter said, we’ve reached a funny impasse.
We’re both over the hump. No matter what we accomplish, no matter how polite we are, and no matter how old our clothes might be, neither one of us is “mature for our age.” Granted, opening a restaurant at 28 years old is impressive, but not entirely unprecedented. Next month, I’ll start a new editor role at a larger magazine. But not such a large magazine that someone does a double-take and asks, “And sorry, how old did you say you were?” I always thought, if I were lucky enough to work for GQ or produce a great novel, people would assume I was an editorial wunderkind. Now, the sentiment starts to lean towards, “What took you so long?” Athletes who were in college at the same time as me are now being called “savvy veterans.”
They say it a lot in sports: “Father Time is undefeated.” I guess the same is true for editors and restaurateurs and art directors and volunteer clothing menders. At a certain point, you’re just doing what you do, not because it signifies success relative to your age, but simply because it is what you do. Whether you’re a wanderer or a straight-line drawer, it’s a weird thing to internalize, especially at 28 years old. I have friends who are having their second child, neither of whom was by accident. I have friends who are on their second breakup this year, neither of which was surprising. We are neither too young nor too old for anything, impressing nor regressing.
Scott, his brother, their friends, Peter, and I left Jamil’s and went out onto Queen Street. We walked together until we reached Apartment 200, a club I’ve never been to. Scott and Peter knew the doorman, and Scott’s brother was DJ’ing. Mending Night and Jamil’s were merely a precursor. A different red carpet was about to be rolled out. Peter pulled out a flower cigarette that I assumed was a joint, and I pulled out a joint that he assumed was a flower cigarette. One of us was just starting their night, and the other was headed to a tidy office building. At 28, 11:30 is far too early to go home and, all the same, far too late to go anywhere else.
