CAFE PAMENAR with Pouria Lotfi-Najafabadi

CAFE PAMENAR

with Pouria Lotfi-Najafabadi

Last summer, around the same time the seed of this project was likely being planted deep in the garden of my mind, I was in the process of gathering content with my team at Streets of Toronto Magazine for our upcoming release. Café Pamenar made it onto the list for featured artists in our food section of the mag and I had the pleasure of hitting up the owner for an article, watering what I believe to be the early inspirations for The Nomad Barista.

Nestled nicely between a bike shop and someone’s peaceful home on Augusta, Café Pamenar is quite the hidden gem in the bustling Kensington Market of Downtown Toronto. With a quaint front patio, and a garage-door entrance that is literally always wide open, it’s hard to resist diverting your Kensington excursion to take a closer look. From the world’s longest wood countertop greeting visitors as they step in, to the overgrown grape vines instilling hints of the Mediterranean stepping out back, Pouria and his family have done a beautiful job at maintaining minimalism and eclecticism amongst the busyness of this well-travelled strip.

CHATS WITH POURIA, THE OWNER

Where did the name Pamenar come from?

Pamenar is the name of a village in the south-west of Iran… But actually, the better-known name comes from a neighbourhood in Tehran based on a street at the foot of the minaret there. It means foot of the minaret; pa meaning foot, and menar meaning minaret. The reason I chose this name, basically, it was an inside joke I had with some friends back in Iran. I had a Swedish friend there who just started filming all the Pamenaris and making funny videos, and that sort of became his nickname. So, that’s where it all started, with a Swedish guy.

So, when did you start this place? My family bought the building in 2010, and it took us about a year to renovate it – the building was rotting, but I think I sort of blanked a lot of that out, haha, it took a lot of work. It officially opened in 2011. Why Kensington, why did you choose this place? I was looking for places all over the city, and I found a place actually down the street, but it fell through. Then the next day, this one came on the market, and we made a quick deal. It ended up actually being a much better set-up.

In terms of coffee, who sources it all? What’s your process for selecting roasts, roasters, etc.? When I lived out in BC, I ended up getting a job at a coffee shop called Discovery, and I liked their coffee a lot. When I moved out here around 2009, there weren’t a lot of roasters out of Toronto, everyone was importing from other parts of Canada or out of the states. So, we started using Discovery, and then I added another roaster called Detour. Yeah, they both taste great.

I see a lot of art on the wall, do you usually have just one artist, or do you have a collection of pieces and themes? Usually just one artist, sometimes there are group shows, but often just one. What’s the selection process, do they approach you or you do you go out and find artists? Usually they come to me. Occasionally if I find someone I like, I’ll go to them, or I’ll find out about people through friends of friends, but they often just come to me. So, paintings, photos… Everything. And do you ever charge to put work on the wall? Nothing usually, sometimes 20%, but usually nothing. If the artist is doing well, and can afford it, then probably yes. I’m not a professional gallery, ya know, so… And it’s like a two-way street, yeah exactly, they get to display their art, and you get great work on your walls.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen in here? Well, someone got arrested here once. He came in off the street, and went to the back. Then the police came in and took him away. I think he was on something. Sometimes people steal tips, also. One time a guy came in and stole the jar; he just put it in his bag and walked out. My dad actually followed him to one of the other shops and called him out on it, and then just took it back. It’s normally pretty tame, though.

Moving to your menu, do you have a favourite item? We don’t have much on the food menu yet, but we do paninis, and we now have charcuterie boards as well. Chips, dips, olives… Very casual tid-bits for while you’re at the bar. And then there’s a booze list. Do you have select wines that you like to use or beers you’re into? Initially, we were striving to be a wine bar, but it didn’t quite work out; the clientele’s not the same, and there’s a certain degree of knowledge that you need with wine that I didn’t really have. So, we’ve sort of generalized out. We’ve got a decent wine list; we’ve got really great beers that are priced really well. Good selection of booze, cocktails and stuff. Do you bring in local beers? Yep. We’ve got a few good ones from Quebec, and from Toronto too.

You’re in a very vibrant community – we were talking a bit about location earlier. Do you ever partner with local Kensington businesses? Yeah, definitely, we do. We have the Kensington Brewery. There’re a lot of connections. People send people our way, we send people their way. Informal stuff, generally. Are there any block parties and stuff around here? Well there’s Pedestrian Sundays, that’s a block party. It’s for the whole city, but it’s a block party. And we do community picnics in Kensington too.

Do you develop relationships with other coffee shops in the area at all? Do you feed off each other, become inspired by each other? No, not really. Is it competitive? Yeah, I mean, by nature it’s competitive. It’s not like a bar; with bars there’s more, like, camaraderie I think. People end up coming to the area because it’s sort of a district you go to, and then they bar hop and stuff, yeah. People don’t coffee shop hop as much… No, haha. People don’t coffee shop hop. And at the moment it’s saturated; maybe over-saturated, I would say. At the moment there’re, like, 8 coffee shops in Kensington Market. And it pushes you too, right? Yep, quality and everything… But we came pretty early here, and things are good.

Do you have any wise words you want to leave us with?

I’d be a fool to even try that.