One of the best-kept secrets of Stackt Market is BMO. You likely would never associate a bank with food and fun, but BMO at their anchor location at Stackt Market isn't an ordinary banking branch! Since Stackt opened in 2019, BMO has been hosting free workshops for the Toronto community.
Their February class round-up is a food lover's dream; so far, they've done a Lunar New Year cooking class with chef Trevor Lui and a Pie Baking Workshop with New Pie Co. For February, other food workshops they have in store include s'mores making, chocolate making in collaboration with Pandoughra's Box and vegan chocolate treats with Raw + Basic.
The s'mores making will commence on February 11 from 4 p.m. - 7 p.m. and will continue for most days during Stackt Hot Chocolate Fest. Look out for them, February 12 from 3 p.m. - 5 p.m., February 16 from 5 p.m. - 7 p.m., February 17 and 18 from 4 p.m. - 7 p.m., and February 19 from 12 p.m. - 7 p.m. They'll be giving away s'mores kits with everything needed at the branch and will have a firepit set up to cook your chocolatey marshmallow sandwich to perfection.
BMO Stackt hosts their workshops in a hybrid format; when they first began in 2019, they hosted in-person workshops as their space had event capacity. They transitioned to a virtual environment while the world adjusted to the pandemic and now do a combination of in-person and online events to make it accessible for everyone. Depending on the class, the first 30-participants to sign up to a class can get free kits, otherwise 24-hours before the event, an ingredient list is released for attendees to gather their goods.
You might just be hearing about this now, but they have hosted over 300 workshops and usually hold 12-18 a month! If you want to sign up for a class, visit their Instagram page to keep in the know about what's happening at the branch, and you can sign up via their linktr.ee page for a free class.
Prakriti Rao, the branch manager at BMO Stackt, along with Rob Bourgeois, a Business Development Manager at BMO, work together to bring these free classes to the Stackt Market community. They work with small businesses to platform engaging experiences and workshops to Toronto free of charge; this allows them to give different shops and creators some exposure (and is also a great way to incorporate themselves into the super fun and creative Stackt world). Some of their non-food-related classes include yoga, soap-making, resin crafting, boxing, etc.
In March and April, BMO Stackt branch will be holding some virtual cooking classes, but Stackt Market, in general, will actually be closed for environmental testing for 2-months, so nothing will be held in person. Some exciting things to keep your eyes on will be a latte-art class with Milky's (part of BMO's small business program and a close friend of the BMO Stackt branch) and collaborations with BIPOC chefs in Toronto (including quite possibly chef David Lee of Planta!).
