Yorkville by black car, in one paragraph
Yorkville — the blocks bounded by Bloor Street, Avenue Road, Davenport Road and Yonge Street — holds Toronto's concentration of luxury hotels (the Four Seasons at Yorkville Avenue and Bay, the Hazelton on Yorkville Avenue, the Park Hyatt at Avenue and Bloor, the Windsor Arms on St. Thomas, the InterContinental on Bloor), the Bloor Street boutiques of the Mink Mile from Avenue Road to Yonge (where stopping is prohibited on Bloor itself and a car uses the side streets), the restaurants on Yorkville Avenue, Cumberland, Scollard and Avenue Road, the ROM and the Gardiner Museum on its southern edge, and the one-way puzzle of Cumberland (westbound), Yorkville Avenue (two-way but narrow), Scollard and Hazelton. A chauffeur who works Yorkville knows each hotel's porte-cochère, each restaurant's pickup corner, the side streets where a Bloor boutique's shopping is loaded (Bellair, St. Thomas, Bay's lay-bys), and the district's TIFF week transformation; this guide is that map.
Yorkville is small — you can walk it end to end in ten minutes — and dense with the places a black car passenger goes: the hotels where visitors stay, the boutiques where they shop, the restaurants where they dine, the museums where they spend an afternoon, and the offices on Bloor where they meet. It is also the district where a car most often does the wrong thing, because Bloor Street prohibits stopping along the Mink Mile, Cumberland runs one way, Yorkville Avenue is narrow and lined with valets, and each hotel's driveway has its own choreography. This guide is the chauffeur's map of Yorkville: the hotels and their doors, the boutiques and the side streets, the restaurants and their pickup corners, the museums, the offices, the one-way streets, the subway crossing, TIFF week, the evening's timing, and a worked day in the district.
The hotels and their doors
The Four Seasons (60 Yorkville Avenue): the porte-cochère on Yorkville Avenue, entered eastbound; the exit onto Bay. Arrivals wait in the driveway with the doormen's direction; the Four Seasons article covers it in detail. The Hazelton (118 Yorkville Avenue): a small forecourt on Yorkville Avenue, discreet, with a valet who moves cars quickly; the Hazelton and Park Hyatt article covers both. The Park Hyatt (4 Avenue Road): the entrance on Avenue Road's east side just north of Bloor, a lay-by that fits three cars, and the Bloor traffic to negotiate leaving. The Windsor Arms (18 St. Thomas Street): a quiet street south of Bloor, a small canopy, easy. The InterContinental Toronto Yorkville (220 Bloor West): a driveway on Bloor's north side west of Avenue Road, the only Bloor-side hotel entrance in the district. The Toronto luxury hotels guide covers the front-door choreography that applies to all of them.
Bloor Street and the Mink Mile
Bloor Street between Avenue Road and Yonge is the Mink Mile — Holt Renfrew, Tiffany, Hermès, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci, Cartier and the rest — and stopping on Bloor is prohibited through the retail hours, enforced by tow. A passenger shopping on Bloor is dropped and collected on the side streets: Bellair (south of Bloor, a short block with a lay-by), St. Thomas (south, quiet), Bay Street (the lay-bys north of Bloor by the Bay subway entrance), Cumberland (north of Bloor, westbound only, with the Holt Renfrew and the Cumberland Terrace loading areas), and Avenue Road north of Bloor. A chauffeur on an hourly circles the block or waits on Bellair while the passenger shops, and carries the bags; the shopping day article covers the pattern and the Yorkdale alternative.
The one-way puzzle
Cumberland Street runs westbound from Yonge to Avenue Road. Yorkville Avenue is two-way but narrow and lined with the Four Seasons', the Hazelton's and the restaurants' valets, and it dead-ends into Avenue Road at the west with a difficult left. Scollard runs eastbound. Hazelton Avenue is two-way and residential north of Yorkville Avenue. Bellair runs south from Cumberland across Bloor. Old York Lane and Yorkville's laneways are pedestrian. The result is that a car entering from Bay and heading for the Hazelton goes west on Yorkville Avenue; one heading for the Park Hyatt from the east goes west on Cumberland and north on Avenue Road; and one leaving the Four Seasons for the airport exits onto Bay and south to Bloor or north to Davenport. A chauffeur who knows this saves five minutes on every trip in the district.
The restaurants and their pickup corners
Sotto Sotto (Avenue Road): the lay-by on Avenue Road's west side, or Yorkville Avenue's corner. Café Boulud and d|bar (the Four Seasons): the hotel's porte-cochère. One (the Hazelton): the Hazelton's forecourt. Kasa Moto and Blu Ristorante (Yorkville Avenue): the Yorkville Avenue curb where the valets allow, or Bellair's corner. Joso's (Davenport): Davenport's curb. Buca Yorkville and Cibo (Scollard and Yorkville): Scollard's eastbound curb. Sassafraz (Cumberland at Bellair): the Bellair corner, which is the district's most useful pickup point for a dinner. The fine dining article covers the restaurants' evenings and the date night article the two-stop evening that Yorkville and the theatre district make.
The ROM, the Gardiner and the district's museums
The Royal Ontario Museum's entrance is on Bloor at Queen's Park, with a lay-by on Queen's Park's east side north of Bloor for drop-offs and the museum's group entrance on Queen's Park for buses; the Gardiner Museum faces it across Queen's Park with its own small forecourt; the Bata Shoe Museum is at Bloor and St. George with a Bloor curb that allows a brief stop west of the retail zone. The ROM and AGO article covers a cultural day and the University of Toronto article the campus the museums border.
The offices on Bloor
Bloor Street's office towers — the Manulife Centre at Bay, the Colonnade, the Hudson's Bay Centre at Yonge, the towers at Avenue Road — have lay-bys on their side streets (Balmuto, Charles, the Manulife's Bay entrance) rather than on Bloor, and a chauffeur meeting an executive at a Bloor office uses them; the executive car service article covers the Financial District's version of the same discipline.
Bloor–Yonge and the subway crossing
Bloor–Yonge is the city's busiest subway interchange, and the intersection above it is the district's slowest — pedestrians in every direction, streetcars none, buses many, a turn from Yonge onto Bloor that can take two lights. A chauffeur avoids the intersection where the route allows (Bay or Church north-south, Cumberland or Charles east-west) and warns the passenger where it does not; the rush hour article covers the windows.
TIFF week
For ten days in September, Yorkville becomes the festival's hotel district — the Four Seasons, the Hazelton, the Park Hyatt and the Windsor Arms hold the talent and the studios, Yorkville Avenue and Cumberland fill with barricades, photographers and the public, and the hotels' driveways run on the studios' security plans. The TIFF guide covers the week in full; the short version is that a chauffeur in Yorkville during TIFF works to the hotel's security, books the district's cars weeks ahead, and expects Yorkville Avenue to be closed to through traffic at the peak.
The evening's timing
A Yorkville dinner at 8 with a pickup at 10:30 is the district's ordinary evening; the restaurants' valets are busiest at 7:30 and 10, and a chauffeur who arrives at 10:25 waits on Bellair or Scollard rather than blocking Yorkville Avenue. A passenger going on from dinner — to a King West bar, a Scotiabank Arena concert, the theatre — is on the hourly with the Entertainment District guide's second half of the evening.
Getting to Yorkville from the airports
Pearson to Yorkville is 35 to 50 minutes on the 401, the 427 and the Gardiner-or-Allen choice the Pearson to downtown hotels article explains — for Yorkville, the 401 to the Allen Road to Eglinton and south on Avenue Road is often the better route than the Gardiner, and the chauffeur decides on the day's traffic. Billy Bishop to Yorkville is 20 minutes up Bay or University; the Billy Bishop guide covers the island's pickup.
A worked day in Yorkville
A visitor at the Hazelton on an hourly from 10 a.m.: 10:00 the Hazelton's forecourt; 10:10 the ROM's Queen's Park lay-by, the chauffeur waiting on Queen's Park; 12:30 lunch at Sotto Sotto, the Avenue Road lay-by; 2:00 Bloor's boutiques — Holt Renfrew from the Bellair drop, Hermès and Chanel from the St. Thomas side, the chauffeur circling and collecting bags at each; 4:30 the Hazelton to rest; 7:45 Sassafraz, the Bellair corner; 10:15 a King West bar, the Entertainment District guide's side street; 12:30 a.m. the Hazelton. Fourteen hours on the hourly, one chauffeur, one car, and a visitor who never once looked for parking.
Yorkville quick reference
| Place | Where the car stops |
|---|---|
| Four Seasons | Porte-cochère on Yorkville Ave (eastbound), exit onto Bay |
| Hazelton | Forecourt on Yorkville Ave |
| Park Hyatt | Avenue Road lay-by, east side, north of Bloor |
| Windsor Arms | St. Thomas Street canopy |
| InterContinental | Driveway on Bloor's north side, west of Avenue Road |
| Bloor boutiques | Never on Bloor — Bellair, St. Thomas, Bay lay-bys, Cumberland, Avenue Road |
| Sassafraz / Cumberland restaurants | Bellair corner |
| Sotto Sotto | Avenue Road lay-by |
| ROM / Gardiner | Queen's Park lay-by north of Bloor |
| Bloor offices | Side-street lay-bys (Balmuto, Charles, Bay) |
| One-way streets | Cumberland westbound; Scollard eastbound; Yorkville Ave two-way, narrow |
| TIFF week | Hotel security's plan; book weeks ahead |
Booking a Yorkville car
The Yorkville neighbourhood page books a transfer; the hourly chauffeur page books the day; the Pearson page the arrival that begins it.
The residents' Yorkville
Yorkville is also a neighbourhood of residents — the condominium towers on Bay, Cumberland, Yorkville Avenue and Avenue Road, the Annex houses west of Avenue Road, the Rosedale streets a few minutes east — and the residents' black car patterns are the airport run at 5 a.m. (the red-eye article), the standing order for a weekly flight, the evening out that ends on the same block it began, and the towers' porte-cochères that a chauffeur learns as well as the hotels': the Four Seasons Private Residences on Yorkville Avenue share the hotel's driveway; the towers on Cumberland use the westbound curb; the Bay Street towers have lay-bys on Bay north of Bloor. A resident's profile on the booking engine carries the tower's entrance note and the doorman's name.
Avenue Road and Davenport
Yorkville's western and northern edges are its arteries: Avenue Road runs north to the 401 (the Pearson route via the Allen when the Gardiner is slow) and south to University and the Financial District; Davenport runs east-west along the district's top, with the Joso's and the Designers Walk shops and the quick link to Dupont and the Annex. A chauffeur leaving Yorkville for the airport at 4 p.m. takes Avenue Road north to the 401 rather than fighting south to the Gardiner, and one heading to a Financial District tower takes Avenue Road south to University; the Pearson to downtown hotels article works both routes' timing.
Evenings at the Four Seasons' bar and the hotel lounges
The district's hotel bars — d|bar at the Four Seasons, the Hazelton's One lounge, the Park Hyatt's rooftop (reopened after the hotel's rebuild), the Windsor Arms' tea room and bar — are the district's late evening, and a pickup from any of them is the hotel's own driveway at 11 or midnight, the calmest pickups in Yorkville because the valets have gone quiet; the date night article makes them the second stop of an evening that began at a Yorkville table.
Getting a car in Yorkville on short notice
Yorkville's hotels have doormen who can hail a taxi, and the district is thick with rideshares at most hours; a black car booked from the engine on a phone at the Four Seasons' bar is at the porte-cochère in fifteen to thirty minutes on an ordinary evening — the fleet's cars are usually in the core — and the same-day booking article covers the hours when that is optimistic (TIFF, New Year's Eve, a Saturday at 2 a.m.). A guest who books the night's car at the start of dinner never has to wonder.
