TORONTO — Toronto-based healthy fast-casual chain, iQ has opened its eighth location in the Greater Toronto Area. As one of the tenants anchoring RioCan’s new Yonge Sheppard Centre, the new location represents iQ’s first uptown-Toronto location.
The 980-sq.-ft. restaurant was designed exclusively for grab-and-go service. With no seating available, iQ’s Yonge Sheppard location is piloting a seamless self-service pick-up bar catering to order-ahead customers through the iQ app. The company intends to roll out the platform across its locations later this year.
“Our goal is to design not only more beautiful, but more thoughtful and functional spaces as we grow. Our mission is to fuel dreams through food and that doesn’t always mean building out large, expansive restaurants. It means getting healthy and sustainable eats into the hands of our guests, exactly the way they want it. And, for a neighbourhood as busy as this one, that means ordering ahead,” says Alan Bekerman, iQ’s founder and CEO.
iQ is set to continue its rapid expansion across Toronto, with two additional locations in the next quarter, a second iQx location at Equinox on Bay Street (March 2019) and another iQ restaurant at Yonge and St. Clair (May 2019).
Executive chef Christine Flynn oversees iQ’s seasonal kitchen and menu of locally sourced and sustainable eats, where more than half of all ingredients used are procured within 100 kilometers of the restaurants.
