Angela Yan opened Matcha Haus on Bathurst Street in the summer of 2025 with a lot still to figure out.
Staffing, inventory, the operational reality of running a specialty café in an older building in a neighbourhood that wasn’t an obvious home run. But customers came, then kept coming.
By November she had a second location open on Queen Street East in Leslieville. Now she is preparing to open inside First Canadian Place, taking over the former Chatime Atelier space in the PATH.
Three locations in under a year. No broker. Just a founder who knows her customer, has built a network of landlords willing to work with her, and is moving faster than almost anyone expected.
@matchahaus the news is out… financial district, say hi to your new matcha spot this spring #MatchaHaus #toronto #spring #matcha ♬ Talk of the Town – The Love Rights
One of the less obvious drivers of that growth is how she has approached real estate. Yan negotiates every lease herself and has specifically sought partners willing to move away from the standard five and ten year commercial commitments that stop a lot of first-time operators before they start.
“Most commercial leases want five, ten years. What’s helped me make the decision to start and to expand is creating really strong relationships with landlords and leasing companies who’ve helped me tailor leases in my favour,” she says.
“A lot of people aren’t able to do some of these things in a short period of time. Having people who genuinely love the brand and want to support it has definitely helped me along the way.”
Each location has come through that network. Bathurst came through a contact. Queen East came the same way.
“Just having that space being open and knowing that area has a lot of coffee shops — nutbar across the street, a Starbucks, a Freshii. Knowing that a lot of people in that area are educated, that they commute into the city for work and on the weekends there’s a huge young family population walking around. And obviously having a favourable lease, I decided to take the jump.”
She Almost Called It Matcha Time. A $200,000 Ask Changed Everything.
Yan’s background is in marketing and advertising, and she understood from the start that the brand would be doing as much work as the product.
“Branding is what everyone remembers, and I feel like a lot of businesses don’t stress that enough,” she says. “As a consumer myself, I wanted to build something that resonated with people, that was inclusive and memorable.”
Her original name was Matcha Time, a deliberate nod to the old Coffee Time chain. She bought the domain, locked down the Instagram handle, and was ready to move forward before discovering a shop in North York was already operating under the same name.
She reached out to the owner and made an offer.
“I offered to buy the name from him and he wanted $200,000. He also wanted me to buy his business. I said no way.”
Back at the drawing board, she landed on Matcha Haus and quickly realised it was the stronger choice.
“It tied back into everything made in-house. That’s where the name came from. It all connected to the brand story.”
Every syrup, every cold foam, every drink on the menu — made from scratch, in-house, across all three locations. That commitment to quality is also central to how Yan thinks about her customer, and how deliberately she has separated Matcha Haus from its competition.
“The competition’s demographic is very much students. They’re close by all the universities, they have one close to OCAD, one close to Ryerson. But for us, our demographic is more educated, a little more health-conscious,” she says.
That clarity is what eventually pointed her toward the financial district — and toward months of conversations with Taylor Borg and commercial leasing firm Beauleigh before the right space emerged.
Union Station Was the First Choice. The Market Had Other Plans.
Yan had been watching the PATH network for a long time before First Canadian Place came up. Her original target was somewhere else entirely.
“My first choice was Union Station. FCP closes on weekends basically. Nothing’s open there on weekends, so you’re obviously losing some sales. Both Bathurst and Queen are busiest on weekends, so there are definitely trade-offs. That’s why Union Station was my first pick.”
The economics didn’t cooperate. Space was harder to come by and the options that did surface had problems — pricing that didn’t work, or square footage too large for the concept.
When the Chatime Atelier space at First Canadian Place came to the table, the decision was quick.
“It was a no-brainer. Amazing location, high visibility, and it was almost turnkey. It was a bubble tea store and now it’s going to be a matcha store. So many synergies.”
The back-to-work mandates sweeping corporate Toronto only strengthened the case.
“The most concentration of the type of clientele I typically like to target is in the financial district. The PATH network, the back-to-work mandates, the traffic and the walkability. It just made more sense.”
She is taking over a previously built-out space and is treating this first iteration as a foundation. The menu will be consistent with the other two locations — no FCP-specific adaptations.
Yan is candid about how different each location has felt to open. Bathurst was where she worked through the hard parts of running a hospitality business from scratch.
“There were a lot more kinks to figure out in terms of staffing, inventory, everything from A to Z. That location is in a much older building than the subsequent second and third. But being able to grow our popularity from there, in what I would say is not considered the most ideal location, was a really good way for us to iron out all the kinks.”
Queen East was the confidence builder. First Canadian Place is where the brand goes next — and according to Yan, she has no intention of slowing down. “I have big dreams for where I want to take this brand. I’m always on the lookout for new opportunities to see where we can flourish.”
Matcha Haus operates at 324 Bathurst Street and 890 Queen Street East, with the First Canadian Place location opening soon. More at matchahaus.ca
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.