Coffee, apple cake and authenticity
By Brooke Houghton
Mystic Muffin is your old friend. It's your high school sweetheart. It's your worn-out sweater in the left drawer of your childhood closet. Mystic Muffin is a second home, and in three years, there may no longer be a mat for you to knock off your boots, pull up a chair and order your favourite apple cake.
What we can always count on is the past — the 27 years of good food and good service the Mystic Muffin has given to Toronto.
On the corner of Jarvis and Richmond streets, Mystic Muffin is old school, both in service and style. When you walk in, the owner Elias Makhoul yells, "Hello," at you from behind the counter. If you've been there before he’ll remember your name and your story. He'll ask about your day and listen and if you don't have money to foot the bill, he'll tell you to pay next time, even if you haven't paid from the time before.
Mystic Muffin owner Elias Makhoul with his son in at his store in Toronto. (CanCulture/Brooke Houghton)
One Saturday a couple came in, the woman paused at the door and took a second look at the afternoon crowd huddled in clumps around the tables, leaning, talking and sipping.
"It's busy today!" she said.
Behind the counter, Elias pointed in my direction.
"No! She's from Microsoft, she wants to buy me out! She almost changed her mind!" he said.
They laughed, handed over their change and left with a coffee and a smile.
Elias is a simple man; he doesn't own a cellphone, or drink or smoke. He bikes to work and he doesn't have cable. He's managed to shrink his business to fit the rising costs of downtown living for a business owner and a family of four.
In the earlier days, he used to cater and deliver daily downtown with two full-time employees but now, his old catering cart has retired to the corner of his shop brimmed to the top with newspapers and him and his wife Annie Makhoul run the show alone.
Elias moved to Toronto from Lebanon when he was 21. He worked odd jobs for about three years until one day he saw a property listing in the Toronto Sun — or was it the Toronto Star — he couldn’t quite remember.
Back then Jarvis Street wasn't the mixed cultural bag it is today with its hipster drip coffee shops, thrift stores and safe injection sites, and as it grew, Elias learned that he couldn't get away with only selling coffee and muffins. So, to compete, he started adding to what now has become a sprawling list of specials and combos stretched along with the chalkboard behind his till and onto the walls of his shop.
A slice of the world-famous apple cake at Mystic Muffin in Toronto. (CanCulture/Brooke Houghton)
The Mystic Muffin is cozy. It's about the size of an average studio apartment with two circle tables in the middle and a row of tables along the far right wall. It has a counter alongside the storefront window and a window sill filled with rocks and Lego building blocks. One wall is dedicated to photos of customers from around the world wearing Mystic Muffin T-shirts. Each photo is marked in uniform with thick, black writing of the year and place. Old articles, family photos and memories are framed along the walls leaving barely an inch of paint to be seen.
In 2003 Elias ran for mayor and lost, but his love for the community and politics didn’t stop there. Any given day you can talk to Elias about politics, or anything really, and he still cares for his community like an old friend. His regulars are encouraged to bring in their own lunches from home in return for a cookie on the house.
Ross Carter-Windgrove, who has been a regular for 18 years, and his wife Anne-Marie Carter-Windgrove stopped in for one of their semi-annual visits and in between the bites of their lunch they told me a little bit about those 18 years.
"Elias is quite a character as you know and the food is amazing. He makes it every day by himself … We come on the weekends every now and again … You know he's one of a kind,” said Ross. “I hope he always prospers and he’s always here, it would be very strange to not have him in Toronto."
An egg and cheese bagel from the Mystic Muffin menu. (CanCulture/Brooke Houghton)
“I like the fact he was doing summer camps I mean that was just incredible … I don’t know if it was a workshop but he did something in the summer with children,” said Anne-Marie.
Ross interjected, “And he ran for mayor too once did you hear that?” He paused for a moment before continuing. “He really supports the community too. When people come in from the neighbourhood and they can’t pay, he’ll take care of them.”
Elias has two-and-a-half more years on his lease but he’d like to make it to thirty years in total. After that you might find Elias, Annie and their two children on a train somewhere in Canada seeing the country day by day. But as Elias says, it’s hard to think when you’re working 16 hours a day.