With­in the land­mark Cana­da Postal Sta­tion ‘K’ build­ing, STOCK offers an open mar­ket at grade, a 200-seat bistro on the sec­ond floor, and a third-floor gar­den room event space with cir­cu­lar bar and roof ter­race.

To restore and repur­pose the 1930’s mason­ry build­ing, we lined the perime­ter walls with mate­ri­als spared from the orig­i­nal shell, and from these hung shelv­ing, light­ing, and acoustic damp­en­ing tex­tures. The omnipres­ence of food prepa­ra­tion, with a clear ‘back­stage’ treat­ment, mix­es with the build­ing mate­ri­als to enliv­en the sens­es.

Just as boun­ti­ful shelves and coun­ters dis­play raw ingre­di­ents and comestibles and the restau­rant serves art­ful plates, we intro­duced mate­ri­als and archi­tec­tur­al ele­ments that we inter­pret­ed in degrees of “unre­fined to refined’ as one moves from the ground lev­el mar­ket and ‘tavola cal­da’ to the bistro, bar, and event expe­ri­ences on the sec­ond and third lev­els.

The stack­ing of spaces, and the charged thresh­olds between them, are enriched by ghost­ed ves­tiges of the his­toric build­ing, such as cus­tom ‘cof­fer’ lights; postage stamp mosa­ic floor­ing, and ‘fil­ing cab­i­net’ felt ceil­ing baf­fles.

The ground lev­el intro­duces the expe­ri­ence as a kind of relaxed but intox­i­cat­ing kitchen and pantry, filled with per­son­al­ly select­ed comestibles such as sun­dries, dried goods, fresh pro­duce, spe­cial­ty items, and flow­ers dis­played on ‘raw’ shelv­ing. Anchored by large butch­ery and bak­ery coun­ters, the space is col­lect­ed under a rip­pling felt prosce­ni­um. Aro­mas and glimpses to the ‘back-stage’ kitchens lead patrons to ready-to-eat and ready-to-cook take­away coun­ters and seat­ing for lin­ger­ing to enjoy fresh offer­ings on the spot.

The sec­ond-floor bistro presents an orches­tra of kitchens, open to a gallery of but­ter-yel­low tuft­ed leather ban­quettes and cork pan­el­ings. The island bar is well-stocked and designed to bridge day-to-night expe­ri­ences, framed by a glit­ter­ing prosce­ni­um mosa­ic of a sub­lime pink sun­rise.

Above the bistro is a pur­pose-built, glass gar­den room. Almost 100 seats of the main din­ing room are flex­i­ble to accom­mo­date arrange­ments for var­i­ous func­tions all year round. This exclu­sive event space takes full advan­tage of its roof-top view and is sur­round­ed by a lush ter­race along the vin­tage cor­nice of its host build­ing.