The archive · Small Business & Money · Operational decision · 2024–2025
Jrew Creations: a flooded Toronto shop becomes a $700 sidewalk patty stall
Flooded out of their store, a Toronto couple built a neon Jamaican patty pop-up for under $700 and made the sidewalk the dining room.
Jrew Creations
What it had to solve
Jaime Aludos and Andrew Foster had grown Jrew Creations from crochet pop-ups into a Toronto storefront, then repeated flooding — capped by the city's heavy July 2024 rains — forced it shut about two months after opening.
How it works
Jrew Creations began in 2022 when Toronto partners Jaime Aludos and Andrew Foster started selling the crochet clothing people noticed them wearing. Crochet pop-ups led to a stall at Stackt Market in January 2023, where they added Jamaican patties to the mix, and the double act — Aludos's handmade fashion, Foster's cooking — grew a following.
In 2024 the pair opened a storefront at 44 Tecumseth Street, but the basement unit flooded repeatedly; after the city's heavy July 2024 rainfall it shut about two months after opening. Rather than wait out repairs, they rebuilt as an outdoor stall in October, gathering lights, fixtures and fittings from Facebook Marketplace and Uber earnings for under $700.
The stall sells Jamaican patties — beef, stew chicken, oxtail, curry goat and pepper shrimp — for C$4.25 to C$7.85 from 6 p.m. until late, with the day's menu announced on Instagram Stories. It went viral on TikTok, influencers began showing up, and Foster, whose father ran a street food stand in Jamaica decades earlier, says grabbing a patty from the sidewalk in under a minute beats opening a door.
Why it lands
- The pop-up cost under $700, so the flood could not end the business — capital, not demand, was the constraint.
- Selling from the street removes every cost and barrier of a room: no door, no lease, no seating, a minute per customer.
- Posting the menu daily on Instagram Stories made each evening feel scarce and current, which is what drove the viral attention.
- The stall kept the couple's existing community intact through the disaster, so the store reopens to an audience, not from zero.
What it did
The pop-up went viral on TikTok and drew influencers and new customers; by January 2025 the pair were moving it to the busier Niagara Street corner while renovating their store, calling the street model an improvement over a door.
What you can take
The storefront is not the business: when a fixed location fails, the same food and community can run from the sidewalk at a fraction of the cost — and a daily scarcity ritual keeps people coming back.
Since then
By February 2025 Jrew Creations was serving from 165 Niagara Street while the flooded store at 44 Tecumseth underwent renovation, with the founders planning to return once repairs finished. The street stall, they said, was a blessing and a curse — it had cost them their store but shown them a leaner model, and Aludos kept selling the handmade crochet alongside the patties.
Sources
- Toronto couple built a Jamaican patty street food stall for less than $700 and it's gone viral
- 'A blessing and a curse': After losing their Toronto patty store to flooding, here's how this couple is bouncing back
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