Toronto's beloved mini doughnut shop is now a part of the Riverside neighbourhood.
COPS soft opened a new location at 89 Lewis Street on Friday, November 4. The popular doughnut shop now has three locations in the city: 89 Lewis Street, 445 Adelaide Street West and 3011 Dufferin Street.
Founder and creative director Alex White knew that COPS would open on the east end, and took the opportunity when it came up.
"We had a temporary pop up [as] part of East Room, knowing it would be coming to an end and wanting to stay east, we happened to stumble upon this amazing location at 89 Lewis Street," White tells TasteToronto.
"We absolutely love Riverside and the support of the east end community has been overwhelmingly positive."
The team gave out a limited number of free doughnuts at the soft opening, which they ran through a few short hours later—a warm welcome from the community.
The 89 Lewis Street location is actually a former auto body shop, and in true COPS fashion, the space itself is as inspired and imbued with art as a warm, sweet box of COPS doughnuts.
"[The space] had amazing bones and personality," says White. "We took this as inspiration with the design, working with Kilogram Studio and really incorporated the concrete and metal elements."
"I told our designer, 'Picture if Aesop and Acne Studios had a doughnut baby.' That was our goal with this space and I think we came pretty close."
COPS first opened in 2018 after the team worked closely with a food scientist and a fine dining chef to perfect its tiny treats. The doughnut shop prides itself on creating "art worth eating" and drops weekly special doughnut flavours on Mondays at 9 a.m. to sell alongside its classic OG sour cream glaze and cinnamon sugar doughnuts.
"At COPS, we like to see ourselves as more of a creative studio that happens to sell doughnuts," notes White. "Our plan is to continue expanding across Canada, the US and beyond, pushing the limits creatively and reimagining what a doughnut shop could and should be."
"At COPS, we believe in creating art worth eating in every form."
COPS is open at 89 Lewis Street from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week. Pre-orders are available online.
