Paisley Coffeehouse & Eatery

The cinnamon buns come out of the oven house-made and still warm, and the peach scones sit in the case beside them — the two things regulars reach for first at Paisley Coffeehouse & Eatery. Both have become the bakery's signatures, the plates a King Street West morning tends to organize itself around, and they set the register for everything else behind the counter. Paisley opened in 2017 in the Westdale storefront that had long been My Dog Joe, and it kept the shape a neighbourhood coffeehouse runs on: a glass case of baking done on site, a counter to order from, and a kitchen that makes its food in-house rather than trucking it in. The bakery case is, in a real sense, the front door to the whole operation.

The baking is only the entry point. The ordering menu runs all day and well past pastry, starting with breakfast sandwiches and a rotating set of muffins — Morning Glory, the Broccoli and Cheese — and a line of toasts that have grown into their own small category, avocado and chickpea among them. From there the kitchen moves into wraps, grain bowls, and lunch sandwiches, while dessert bars like the Hello Dolly and the Lemon Cranberry Square hold down the sweet end of the counter. Drinks reach past drip coffee into cold-brewed matcha for the afternoons. And the weekend narrows the focus to two standing specials worth timing a visit around: vegan cinnamon buns on Saturday, a cheesy biscuit breakfast sandwich on Sunday.