Grab a killer coffee, then head out on a group run
Sweat & Soda on Queen East is a café and fitness hub that doesn’t cater only to athletes
It’s morning, and the owners of Sweat & Soda have been living the brand. Guy Ozery is in a black T-shirt and shorts, having gone on the café’s 7 a.m. organized run. His spouse and business partner, Yoona Hong, has just come from the gym.
“We are both really lazy,” explains Hong, inexplicably.
“I need someone to get me out of bed and do this stuff,” adds Ozery.
While this duo is fit and loves healthy food, they see their Leslieville café and fitness hub, on Queen St. E. near Carlaw Ave., as a place for people like them. They’re not vegan but they appreciate a good vegan salad bowl for lunch. They work out, but need a community to keep them moving.
“We don’t want to be branded as this crazy place for athletes,” says Ozery. The goal instead is to create a place for regular people like themselves to stop by for food, drink and motivation.
Both come from a family-business background. Ozery’s clan runs a wholesale bakery — he travels frequently for that business. Hong ran an apparel company with family.
About four years ago, she realized it was time to move on and wanted to start something herself. She already had a passion for food and was trying out healthy recipes and trying techniques such as fermentation (a nod to her Korean heritage — she makes a killer kimchi).
“We love entertaining, we love food, we love fitness. Why not put it all together?” she says.
So the two planned Sweat & Soda as a casual eatery that offered support for fitness activities, including planned runs and bike rides (those will start soon, with Ozery at the helm) and on-site lockers.
The food had to be geared to fitness buffs, but also tasty. Ozery insisted on great coffee (they sell Propeller).
In August 2014, they found this spot and bought the building. They sold their home on nearby Degrassi St. (although they’d just finished a renovation) and set to upgrading the upstairs apartment.
They moved upstairs in January 2015 and started work on the main floor. Now that both spaces are finished (well, nearly, a covered back patio is still in the works; its roof will serve as a private patio for their upstairs apartment) they’re living the kind of lifestyle they both crave.
Lots of time for their business, with zero commute and easy access to healthy food and more fitness.
None of this sounds lazy at all. But it does sound like a pretty organic way to run a lifestyle business.