The bubble tea shop at the northeast corner of Spadina and Dundas is a bubble tea shop no longer. These days, the formerly beverage-laden Lüfangyuan at 285 Spadina (綠芳園 or Green Fragrant Garden, to translate inelegantly) has stopped serving drinks. It’s still open — but rather than tables and chairs, it’s completely filled with statues, featuring everything from lions and oxen to Sun Wukong, the Monkey King hero of Chinese mythology.
It’s unclear if Lüfangyuan is on its way to a permanent closure or if the owners are taking a seasonal break (Canadian winters aren’t exactly ideal for the cold beverage market). Why the place is now filled with statues is anybody’s guess. Either way, the store is currently offering an absurd and amusing sight for Chinatown pedestrians.
In fact, the shop’s location has a tradition for the offbeat. The building is currently shared with an RBC branch, but started off in 1922 as the Standard Theatre, then the epicenter of Yiddish theatre in Toronto. In the 1920s the Standard became both a hotbed for Left Wing Labour activism, as well as a boxing venue (one would hope not at the same time). By the ’60s, the Standard had morphed into Victory Burlesque, where its risqué performances drew attention from the police. The building eventually became a Chinese cinema, but the venture fizzled out by the ’90s.
Until recently, the joint served as a bubble tea shop — now empty of customers and staff, but packed with statues. In hindsight, nothing too surprising for that location.
