The Poet Café

173 King Street East, Toronto, ON M5A 1J4  

Call: 416-368-7638

Just a couple of blocks from the St. Lawrence market, The Poet Specialty Cafe and Tapas Bar offers unique Persian homestyle brunches, lunches and drinks. Tehran born owner Amir has created an inviting menu of items such as a date cappuccino!

The # 504 eastbound accessible King Street streetcar, which connects to the subway system, stops just steps from the Café, with a curb cut at the corner of King and Jarvis Street. The sidewalk leading to the restaurant is smooth and clear of obstruction with three signs identifying the restaurant including a painted window sign. There is an automatic button for the 36 inch wide door at the entrance. A few small tiles are missing at the ¼ inch threshold, but staff remarked that there are plans to completely resurface the entrance.

Just inside the café is space to park a scooter with additional scooter parking at the back of the restaurant. The tiled floor is smooth and the wide aisle provides ample room to manoeuvre. The service counter is 35 inches high, while tables are standard height with removable chairs. Emergency exits at the back of the restaurant are clearly marked but at the time of visiting there was a table partially obstructing access to the exit. There is abundant natural light streaming in through the wide front window while the lighting at the back of the restaurant, although intimate, is on the dim side.

An automatic door button opens the well-lit accessible washroom, measuring 100 inches x 67 inches. The 35 inch wide door has a lever handle. Opposite the 18 inch high toilet is a convenient low hook on the wall. The grab bar behind the toilet is 34 inches above the floor while the side grab bar is 30 inches high. The toilet does not automatically flush. The open 35 inch space below the sink allows wheelchair access to a manual water faucet lever and a soap dispenser positioned 6 inches from the counter. The paper towel dispenser is 19 inches from the sink and could be challenging to reach from a seated position.

There was no music at the time of visiting. Staff are helpful and friendly. The lettering on the food menus needs to have stronger contrast and the font size should be larger for customers with vision loss. However, the drink menu had great contrast and larger font size.

The closest parking lot is King George Square Parking one street east of Jarvis on George Street, north of King Street.