The Café patio is cooking up street snacks including hot dogs, quesadillas, oysters and meatball sliders. Also the Sky Yard Taco and Tequila Shack is transformed into an Apple Shack with candied apples, cider and apple cocktails from 7 p.m. until 2 a.m. (via Toronto.com)Toronto’s West Queen West is a neighborhood in flux, where appliance stores, art galleries, and places like Camera, a screening-room bar owned by filmmaker Atom Egoyan, exist cheek by jowl. In 2001, when Canadian entrepreneur Jeff Stober first walked into the Drake Hotel, a former flophouse on a gritty stretch, he saw its potential and set about fashioning a hub for the area's creative types. The style of the 19 rooms is beyond eclectic: floral wallpaper, sock dolls crafted by a local artist, transparent ottomans with visible springs, ladders leading up to an overhead storage space. Downstairs, the dining-room walls are covered in trippy flocked Rorschach blots, and the lounge has leather booths and red velvet banquettes. The hotel employs an in-house curator who arranges shows in the lobby exhibition space and manages an artist-in-residence program. Permanent art displays are peppered throughout the building, from a light installation made from bicycle parts in the café to a Bums and Chests piece made from postcards in a men’s lavatory.The Drake Hotel is a cultural, entertainment and hospitality landmark in Toronto. In the five years since our opening, the Drake has come to be known as an energetic hub for visual & performance art as well as dining and hospitality, thus providing one of Canada’s most unique and sought after hotel and culinary experiences. We are clearly more than a place to eat and sleep: we are a hotbed for culture. We eagerly await your arrival and open our doors to your hearts and minds.