Getting a table at PLANTA Yorkville used to require some planning. The room was stunning, the food was genuinely surprising, and the fact that none of it contained a single animal product was almost beside the point. That was always the whole idea. When Chef David Lee and Steven Salm opened the doors on Bay Street in late 2016, they were not trying to convert anyone. They were trying to prove that a plant-based restaurant could be one of the best restaurants in Toronto, full stop. For a long time, they were right.
As of today, May 19, 2026, PLANTA has permanently closed all of its remaining Toronto locations. The brand that started here, grew here and used this city as its launching pad into North America is done in Canada. A website post confirmed what the industry had been bracing for since the U.S. bankruptcy proceedings began more than a year ago.
David Lee came to this city with serious credentials. He had built his reputation at Splendido and later at Nota Bene, the King Street West restaurant that spent years on every best-in-Canada list worth mentioning. Lee was not a chef chasing a trend when he went plant-based. He had a health scare, changed how he ate, and quickly realized that nowhere in Toronto could match what he was looking for at the table. The city’s vegan dining scene at the time was, to put it plainly, uninspired. Lee decided to fix that.
Partnering with Chase Hospitality Group’s Steven Salm, Lee took over the former Pangaea space at Bay and Cumberland and opened PLANTA Yorkville in September 2016. The room, designed by East Studio, turned heads immediately. The menu was 100 percent plant-based but it did not announce itself that way. Dishes like the carrot hot dog, the smoked cauliflower and the PLANTA burger were built on the same sourcing discipline and technical rigour Lee had applied at every restaurant before it, working with local producers within 100 kilometres of the restaurant wherever possible. The skeptics came in expecting to be underwhelmed. Most of them came back.
The expansion that followed was deliberate. PLANTA Queen opened on Queen West in 2019, taking over the former Nota Bene space, a move that felt like a statement. Lee rooted the pan-Asian menu in the flavors of his childhood in Mauritius, where his grandmothers cooked for large extended family gatherings and ingredients were chosen with care. The watermelon ahi nigiri became a signature. The Bang Bang Broccoli developed a following of its own. The 7,000 square foot room on Queen became one of the more energetic dining rooms in the city, drawing in guests who had never considered a plant-based meal before and turning many of them into regulars.
Planta Burger and Planta Cocina followed, each testing a different format and cuisine. Both eventually wound down in Toronto, but they were never the core of what the brand meant to this city. What mattered was Yorkville, where it started, and Queen West, where it grew into something looser and more confident. Chase Hospitality Group sold off its other restaurant concepts in 2022 to focus exclusively on PLANTA, a decision that signaled genuine belief in where the brand was going. By then it had locations in Miami, New York, Chicago, Washington D.C., Atlanta and Los Angeles. The concept that launched in Toronto had found an audience far beyond it.
The signs of trouble arrived in May 2025, when CHG US Holdings filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. CEO Steven Salm pointed to rising costs and a sustained pullback in consumer dining spending. The Canadian locations were not part of the filing and kept operating. There was a reasonable case at the time that Toronto would come through it intact.
A recovery appeared to take shape in September 2025 when lender Anchorage Capital Group acquired the chain out of bankruptcy for roughly $7.8 million, mostly through converted debt, with Toronto among the locations slated to remain open. That window closed faster than anyone expected. Litigation emerged involving former directors and officers, funding ran out, and the reorganization fell apart. In March 2026, a Delaware judge approved the conversion to Chapter 7 liquidation covering 17 U.S. locations. The Toronto restaurants held on through two rounds of restructuring. The third was too much.
In their message to guests today, PLANTA thanked Toronto for helping shape the brand from the beginning. That is not just a closing line in a press statement. This city gave PLANTA its original audience, its early press, its proof that the concept worked and its confidence to take the idea south. The Yorkville location in particular was where Lee and Salm figured out what they had. Losing it, along with everything that followed, is a real loss for a dining scene that does not have many stories like this one.
The spaces on Bay Street and Queen West will draw interest. Good restaurant real estate in this city always does. What comes next in those rooms is worth watching, and 6ixRetail will be at both locations tomorrow to see them firsthand.
Dustin Fuhs is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of 6ix Retail, Toronto’s premier source for retail and hospitality industry news. As the former Editor-in-Chief of Retail Insider, Canada’s most-read retail trade publication, Dustin brings over two decades of expertise spanning retail, marketing, entertainment and hospitality sectors. His experience includes roles with industry giants such as The Walt Disney Company, The Hockey Hall of Fame, The Canadian Opera Company, Starbucks Canada and Blockbuster.
Recognized as a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert in 2024, 2025 and 2026, Dustin delivers insider perspectives on Toronto’s evolving retail landscape, from emerging brands to established players reshaping the city’s commercial districts.