I dropped out to run a café on Ward's Island. A fire couldn't stop the dream.

Ward's Island is an idyllic place to grow up—a tight-knit community like a small town in the middle of the city. Sarah's parents, Peter and Maura, bought a house here in 1983, and she spent her childhood roaming the island on bikes and boats. The Ward's Island Association clubhouse, built in 1938, has been the hub of island life for decades—locals gather for bingo, and countless friends got married there.

From 1983 to 1993, Sarah's parents ran a small café in the clubhouse before they couldn't renew their lease. The business disappeared when she was a toddler, but she always had a soft spot for that building, knowing her family had once had a life there.

Sarah moved off the island for university in 2008. Nine years later, on a break from a summer job in Northern Ontario, she returned for a visit. One Saturday morning in August 2009—the middle of high season for island tourism—she wanted coffee but found the clubhouse café closed. The realization hit hard: here was the busiest time of year, and there was nowhere to get a decent cup.

"I was feeling a bit lost at the time," she recalls. "I was 19 and didn't have a clear career path with the arts degree I was pursuing. I was excited by the idea of doing something more concrete." She had worked as a dishwasher and prep cook at the Rectory, another island restaurant, and at an Italian place on Spadina and Richmond. She loved the kitchen culture—chatting with older cooks, learning dishes, the whole ecosystem of food service.

She called the Ward's Island Association. They told her the lease was ending that year, and she could apply—but they needed a business partner, preferably someone over 20 with financial backing. With persuasion, her parents agreed to co-sign a roughly $4,000-a-month lease, and the family business restarted.

Her initial plan was to run it summers, then go back to school in the fall. But both parents—teachers at OISE and King Edward Public School respectively—were able to dedicate summers to the café. Her mom baked; Sarah cooked lunch and dinner. Her dad handled accounting and was the fix-it person for plumbing, electrical, everything. To raise capital, she worked a construction job for six months, kicking in about $10,000 in that first year. Her parents invested roughly $20,000. The espresso machine and grinder alone cost $15,000.

They opened in spring 2010. Halfway through the season, Sarah realized she wasn't going back to school. "I thought we should be open through September, and there was so much prep to do for the next spring—and honestly, I was having fun," she says. "I had so many ideas for improving and expanding the café, and I wanted to give it my full attention."

When they took over, the space was a run-down takeout counter serving only coffee, hot dogs, and ice cream. From day one, they started serving real food. Everything was made from scratch, sourced as sustainably as possible—a philosophy that would define the place.

The café became a fixture of island life. Sarah worked there summers for years, building relationships with locals and tourists alike. She became part of the island's identity, just as her parents had been decades before.

Then, in recent years, disaster struck: a devastating fire tore through the building. The café was destroyed. For a moment, it seemed like history was repeating—like the island had taken away what her family had built, just as it had when she was a toddler.

But Sarah didn't give up. Even after the fire, the dream of running that café on Ward's Island remained alive. The island community that had nurtured her as a child, and that she had served as an adult, stood by her. The story of her family's restaurant—first her parents', then hers—is woven into the island itself. One loss, one rebuild, one generation at a time.