Popular east-end brewery pushed out of Toronto due to high price of real estate

A popular east-end Toronto brewery has been forced to relocate to Stouffville after their landlord announced his plans to sell the building and an affordable alternative elsewhere in the city was financially out of reach.

If you’ve ever found yourself in Toronto’s Parkview Hills neighbourhood, just north of Woodbine Avenue and O’Connor Drive, you may have stumbled across – or into – Muddy York Brewing Co.

The humble-looking brewery has become a mainstay in that pocket of the city’s east end for the better part of a decade, serving up a wide variety of craft beer to patrons thirsty for a pint and racking up impressive customer reviews along the way.

Business had become so successful, in fact, that married owners, Susan Michalek and Jeff Manol, planned to expand north of the city, hoping to break into the otherwise untapped market of Stouffville.

But, after their Toronto landlord recently announced his intention to sell the building, the pair realized their expansion plans had been cut short and were now forced to relocate altogether after being unable to find an affordable alternative elsewhere.

“We definitely didn't want to leave. And we definitely wanted to stay and extend our lease there,” Michalek told CTV News Toronto in an interview.

“It’s just a shame because we've spent many years really working on our current location and doing our best to attract people, and it's just become a really lovely community hub, and we're going really miss a lot of our customers and we're going to miss the vibes there.”