‘It’s five o’clock somewhere,’ I chuckle, raising a dram of amber liquid to my lips. The spirit — peaty, smoky, divine — slides down with ease. I glance at the label: Lagavulin Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky, aged sixteen years.
Stratford has a way of seducing the senses. This small city on the Avon, best known, of course, for the internationally acclaimed celebration of Shakespearean theatre, is no stranger to performance. But the drama here extends well beyond the stage. It’s found in the details that animate Festival City: in the way spaces are curated, food is plated, cocktails composed, and shop windows styled.
Tucked inside a restored nineteenth-century landmark in Uptown Waterloo, Den 1880 is flipping the script on traditional workspaces. More than an assemblage of offices and meeting rooms, this regional destination is a thoughtfully envisioned blend of comfort, creativity, and community.
Our region is bursting at the seams with old factories — surviving monuments to a time when this area of Southwestern Ontario was a manufacturing powerhouse of the Commonwealth. And while many of these industrial icons have, predictably, been reborn as condos and tech offices, others have taken on new life as warm, welcoming, customer-facing spaces: restaurants, cafés, boutiques — and breweries.
Uptown Waterloo is home to a string of killer cocktail joints: White Rabbit, Solé Restaurant and Wine Bar, Babylon Sisters, Bodega Rose, and more. There are so many great options, you’d be hard pressed to hit them all in a weekend. So we did it for you — or at least we tried. Here are five Uptown cocktails we managed to capture for posterity.
Step inside Wills & Prior — a haven for all things home and design in the heart of Stratford — and it’s as if the world exhales. A calm breeziness infuses everything here: the lofty ceilings and pendant lights draped in oversized fabric shades; the reclaimed wood floors and towering windows that flood the two-storey space with natural light; the fresh floral arrangements and subtle signature scent; the staff — stylish, approachable, and genuinely helpful — gliding quietly through the space.
In a crowded market, Mica and Jill Sadler are attempting to redefine what a real estate experience can be. As principals at Kitchener-based Sadler Real Estate Group, Jill and Mica blend sharp market insight with a data-driven, client-first approach that’s rooted in strategy and trust.
Sometimes a development project comes along so bold and ambitious that it promises to transform an entire community. In London’s Old East Village such an initiative is taking shape: the redevelopment of 100 Kellogg Lane. For over a century — from 1913 to 2014 — this million-square-foot factory produced up to twenty-seven different Kellogg’s cereals: from Frosted Flakes to Raisin Bran.
‘I feel as though the weight of the world has just been lifted from my shoulders,’ I say to Liz with a chuckle, dropping my well-traveled Filson luggage onto the cool, poured concrete floor. I exhale, take a slow look around, and then step fully into the spacious, design-forward oasis. It’s the peacefulness of the space that hits me first: it’s utterly serene, as though the entire suite has been acoustically tuned to quiet my thoughts.
Travel tends to sharpen taste. It introduces new ideas, uncovers unforeseen obsessions, and offers the occasional epiphany – nudging your sense of beauty and your grasp of craftsmanship in new directions. For Ryan LeClair, founder of Makoto Watch Company out of London, Ontario, it was travel – and specifically a trip to Japan – that transformed his infatuation with watch collecting into his initiation of a brand built on craft, restraint, and everyday practicality.
Almost nothing we carry defines us more clearly than the books in our bags: tactile objects filled with ideas and stories – testimonies to time well spent. They tag along with us, mark our days, and shape the rhythm of how we move through the world. In Uptown Waterloo, three long-standing independent bookstores – Carry-On Comics & Books (46 years young), Words Worth Books (42 years), and Old Goat Books (25 years) – offer distinct ways to build this bracket of everyday carry: a nostalgia-driven comic haven built for the thrill of discovery, a curated literary hub grounded in conversation, and a densely-packed used bookstore where the search is part of the reward. Together, these enduring fixtures map a reading life – charting not just what we read, but how we come to find it.
In my line of work – as writer, photographer, editor, regional explorer – EDC isn't a trend. It's infrastructure. Most days I'm in motion: tracing backroads toward a brewhouse, mapping my way to an artist's studio, or sliding into the corner of a coffee shop where I turn field notes into final copy and RAW files into photographs that will pop on paper. My office is wherever I set my bag down. My tools make it possible.
Stratford – and, by extension, Perth County – lends itself to takeaway. A coffee to carry, a sandwich in hand, something sweet tucked alongside – then out into the streets for window shopping, into the theatres for a performance, or down to the riverbank for a nosh.
