Toronto has its share of artistic coffee shops, whimsical bookstores and every unique retailer in between. A select few of these cool spots manage to stand out from the pack by having the most adorable four-legged employees.
Five stores in particular are home to fur babies who wander — even live inside — the animal-friendly businesses, and are beloved by customers and the community.
Meet the pet mascots who brighten up these shops.
Haru
Our Haru, 28 Bathurst St.
For most of her life, Chaewon Kim never imagined becoming a dog mom, because while she loved dogs, she admits that she used to be afraid of them.
“You’re so cute,” she’d tell them, “but please don’t come close to me.”
Today, her career now revolves around the only family member she has in Canada, a fluffy, friendly Bichon Frisé named Haru.
Originally from South Korea, Kim left to pursue her passion in drawing and painting at OCAD University. After graduating, she can’t remember why, but she often found herself doing the unthinkable: scrolling online, browsing for puppies.
In June 2017, she got the eight-week-old Haru from a breeder in Cookstown, Ont., and fell in love.
After a visit back home, Kim was inspired to bring to Canada the wide variety of stylish clothing she saw in Korean pet shops, including frilly, lace collars and hipster windbreakers. This prompted her to launch in 2021 the online pet supply store Our Haru to sell products manufactured by South Korean designers and small brands. She expanded to a physical location at Stackt Market in January 2023.
The shop has done so well that it even became included as a bucket-list location for people visiting the city from as far as Spain, Kim told the Star. In December, the Stackt Market location was temporarily closed on weekdays while Kim ran a pop-up shop at Union Station, organized by TD and TikTok for entrepreneurs across the country.
Kim says that without Haru, the business would not be the success it is today, as her seven-year-old dog is the official mascot of the shop. Haru can often be seen greeting customers and comforting community members who de-stress by petting their furry friend after a long work day.
Haru means “a day” in Korean, Kim said, “so I wanted to remind myself a day is a limited time that we need to spend more preciously,” Since dogs and cats have shorter lives than humans, she added, pet owners should devote more time to them.
Kim said Haru is “very calm and well-behaved” and is “very comfortable” at the store, interacting with other dogs and sometimes laying on her back to enjoy belly rubs from customers.
”(Haru) is a gift from God,” Kim said. “Some people say to her, ‘You are the luckiest dog.’ But no, I’m the luckiest person because of her.”
Mabel the Third
Mabel’s Fables, 662 Mount Pleasant Rd.
Approaching 37 years in business, Eleanor LeFave still gets asked if she’s the eponymous Mabel when new customers walk into her vibrant, fairy-tale-like children’s bookstore Mabel’s Fables, that has been a staple for kids (and adults) in the Mount Pleasant area.
“No, it’s the fuzzy one over there,” says LeFave, referring to the 12-year-old domestic shorthair cat that has been living inside the independent bookstore for more than a decade.
Mabel is the third shop cat the bookstore has kept since its inception in 1988. Before her were Mabel the First and Mabel the Second, both of whom died of old age.
All three came from Toronto Cat Rescue and were chosen to fit the needs of the store, which included having a calm, chill personality, but also being inquisitive and comfortable in an environment with people of all ages.
Mabel, who LeFave has dubbed the store’s head of publicity, likes to spend her days sitting on book stacks and welcomes her keepers and co-workers when they arrive every morning, as she waits to be served breakfast.
LeFave — with her sister Susan McCulloch, a teacher-librarian — decided to open a children’s bookstore because as a mother herself, she wanted to encourage her kids and others to read at an early age, and to have parents motivate this behaviour. She wanted a shop cat, she explained, since it was a tradition for bookstores hundreds of years ago to have a cat to keep mice and other pests from harming the offerings.
The two-storey shop specializes in books for children and teens, but it also has what LeFave calls a “small but mighty” collection of novels for adults.
The shop has initiated other efforts to make reading more accessible, such as the Kids Read North project, which allows parents and their kids to gift books from Mabel’s Fables to First Nations children in Northern Ontario.
The curious and bashful Mabel the Third only likes to be petted by people she trusts and can usually be found napping or sunbathing by one of the store’s front window displays where she nonchalantly stares back at dogs who are fascinated by her.
LeFave says she or her staff often have to clean the windows because of “all the nose prints from dogs,” a sign of Mabel’s popularity.
Mabel is also very popular with customers, getting a smile out of almost any animal lover.
“I think it’s wonderful to have an animal here. It makes us stand apart,” LeFave said. “Most customers think that it’s a really good experience for children who, for instance, don’t have a pet at home.
“She has a big fan club. A lot of people care about her.”
Sundae
Memento Film Lab, 216 Ossington Ave.
At this photography store in the Trinity-Bellwoods neighbourhood, an employee-of-the-month plaque on the wall honours the contributions of a two-year-old Dalmatian named Sundae, who is not only the most adorable staff member, but also arguably the most popular.
“We like to joke that she’s the manager,” said Helder De Oliveira, one of the owners of Memento Film Lab and Sundae’s dad.
The animal-friendly business was started in June 2023 by photographers De Oliveira and James Lai, who met many years earlier while working at another film lab.
Before the store’s official opening, De Oliveira, who grew up with dogs, thought it would be the perfect time to get his own pet as he would have a set schedule and enough bandwidth to take care of one.
De Oliveira said he started bringing Sundae to the store when she was just a puppy and, soon, she built bonds with Memento customers.
Some come in and take photos with Sundae, often sharing them on social media. Others bring treats or toys for the Dalmatian, who De Oliveira calls the “sweetest dog.”
De Oliveira has noticed that some walk into the business just to say hello to Sundae and pet her.
“There are days when I give her a break and just leave her at home when I go to work, and I kid you not, there are more than a handful of people who come in and they’re funnily upset that Sundae isn’t around,” he said.
A few months ago, Sundae brought a customer to tears after leaning against her and putting her paws on her before giving her a hug just as the customer went down to the dog’s eye level.
The customer, De Oliveira said, had recently lost a family member.
“The person just looked at me and was like, ‘You have no idea how much I needed this,’” said De Oliveira.
De Oliveira, 33, said Sundae has changed him as a person and has flipped his lifestyle; taking care of an animal “who counts on him” has made him more mature and responsible.
“She’s definitely brought a lot of structure and joy to my life,” he said. “And I couldn’t be any happier with our home life, personal life and the work-life balance.”
The store — which develops film and prints photos — even dedicated one of its recurring gallery shows to the beloved dog, calling for the community to submit their favourite pictures of Sundae.
This month, the shop will offer a limited-edition Sundae-inspired film roll featuring — what else? — black spots on its white label.
Boba
Playground Cafe, 492 Parliament St.
It was during the pandemic when Estelle Hechanova decided to make some big moves in her life. She got Boba, a three-year-old emotional support French Bulldog, and opened up her own cafe after being inspired by her love of “cafe hopping” while travelling the world.
She is the owner of Playground Cafe, an Instagrammable hot spot, which besides serving specialty drinks and desserts, regularly hosts new installations by local artists.
For those familiar with the shop, Boba is very important to the business’s identity: she appeared as an illustration on the store’s logo, seen on coffee cups and the cafe’s social media accounts. (The store often changes its emblem to support local artists, but Hechanova said a Boba logo may return in 2025.)
Boba has a “distinct personality,” Hechanova said, and likes to gently greet customers, walking over to them for a pat and acknowledging them by staring right into their eyes before frolicking back to her resting area. She doesn’t invade personal space, no climbing on people, but she often lies down next to them, Hechanova said.
The Frenchie is so well-known that she has been recognized outside of the cafe.
“When I was golfing,” Hechanova said, “someone came up to me and was like, ‘Hey, this dog kind of looks like Boba,’ and I was like, ‘It is Boba!”
At the cafe, a regular mocha-loving customer once started to sob when she interacted with Boba. Hechanova worriedly approached the woman and said, “Oh my goodness, did Boba do something to you?”
The woman told her that Boba didn’t do anything wrong; rather the dog’s comforting presence relieved the “pain she was going through.”
“She makes a lot of people feel calm,” Hechanova said. “If someone’s crying or feels sad, she’d rather be with that person. I love that about her so much.”
Piff, Lucy, Mona and Lucky
Off the Wall Art & Framing Gallery, 450 Queen St. W.
Before Allison Patchell even started working at her father’s art and framing business, the store became a home to stray cats.
Years later, when Patchell eventually took over Off the Wall, and Shannon Chisholm-Clark joined the two-women team, the human staff remained outnumbered by four feline employees who like to nap and lounge around.
Patchell’s father, Ross, made the decision to move the store, which he opened in 1993, from its original location at 281 Queen St. W. to the current one in 1998.
In late 2011 during a harsh winter, Patchell said, a cat gave birth to three kittens in the garage behind the store, just as her father was beginning construction on a workshop extension. When he tore up the garage, the cats were displaced.
Ross, an animal lover, felt responsible for disrupting the kittens’ habitat, so the cats started living in the shop along with their mother, Alice.
“They ended up in here because we kind of knocked down their home,” Patchell said.
Once housing up to six strays at once, the gallery is now home to four neutered cats, including the three — Lucy, Mona and Lucky — born in the garage 13 years ago.
The fourth and oldest is Piff, a 16-year-old male domestic shorthair.
Lucy, a grey tabby, is lovely to customers and meows at them while rubbing against their legs. However, Patchell said that she and Chisholm-Clark don’t receive that kind of attention, even though they feed and take care of her.
“She’ll tolerate us, but she’s not all over us the same way she is with strangers,” Patchell said.
Mona is another friendly, but vain, cat with long, fluffy hair and a strange but adorable habit of jumping onto the barber chair that has been sitting in the gallery for years, and wanting her hair to be brushed by visitors.
Unlike her sisters, the black Lucky is timid and doesn’t make many appearances.
Piff seems to be popular with customers — and even got a shoutout in a five-star Google review. He has his own bed by the window where he likes to rest and soak up the sun.
The animal-friendly store sometimes gets visits from dogs, and Patchell said the cats interact well with them. Some customers even bring in their own cats, though the shop cats get riled up when seeing them.
Patchell, who has two of her own cats at home — one of which was also born in the shop’s alleyway — said that while the pets aren’t for everyone, especially those with allergies, the shop cats bring joy.
“I feel like they’re also the community’s cats,” she said. “It just gives me a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling.”
