Forest Hill Farmhouse Expands in Toronto with 4th Location, Makes Plans for Yorkville Flagship [Interview] (2024)

Salad-based foodservice concept Forest Hill Farmhouse recently opened its fourth location in Toronto with plans to continuously expand, while at the same time developing a new loyalty program. The company also plans to open its first flagship location in Toronto in the city’s Yorkville area.

“Our new location is in the Brookfield PATH system and it marks our fourth store opening in Toronto. We are excited to expand further into Yorkville and North York, finding locations that cater to both dine-in experiences and takeout options,” says Blair Bitove, the founder of Forest Hill Farmhouse. “There are very limited healthy food options, and we really want to test our products out with people who are in search of a healthy meal and we thought that being in the financial district was the best way to do that.”

Bitove says the Yorkville location, which will be its first flagship store, will be opening by the end of the year and the location in North York will be opening at the beginning of 2025.

“We really want to open a flagship location, and we think that the branding of our restaurant and the clientele that we serve fairly fits the Yorkville area. We are still such a new brand and we are really trying to get our name out there. We have had so many customers who as soon as they walk in and try our products – keep coming back, so it is really just about getting more brand presence for us.”

Bitove says they are searching for an area in Yorkville that will be around 2,000 square feet. The other three locations are on Bay Street, Lola Road, and Queen Street East, with the later only available for takeout.

The brand offers a variety of freshly made salads where consumers can decide from the menu or customize to their preferences. Bitove founded the brand to bring healthy meal choices to customers in the city as she found there were limited options for salads.

Expansion plans going forward

Bitove says after expanding in Toronto, the brand will be looking into suburban towns “that don’t necessarily get the luxury of all the city products.”

Outside of Ontario, Bitove says they are looking to expand to the West Coast, hopefully by next year with Calgary and Vancouver being the main targets.

“There are two different types of locations that we are looking for, whether we want to dine in or if we want to be more of a food court or office area. So our PATH location is only around 700 square feet and our biggest one being 1,500 square feet, so locations around these sizes.”

Looking ahead in five years, Bitove says she is hoping to have several new locations in Canada and would also like to expand into the United States.

Influences from consumer feedback

“We started in a pretty small neighbourhood and as we have continued to grow, we have seen more awareness from other locations and I think it brings more consumers in because they have heard from us. But our customers keep coming back daily, which is great to see and they also keep giving us suggestions and feedback.”

The main feedback Forest Hill Farmhouse is receiving is to bottle its dressings. Bitove says because of the high demand for dressings, they will be hopefully bottling its dressings this year and is looking to sell them in retail outlets.

“We are talking with retail outlets currently, and we are hoping to launch them in the Fall. But we are going to start selling them in our locations.”

Outside of dressings, Bitove says there are other products the brand will be looking at selling, including homemade tortilla strips: “We have been trying to figure out how we can package them, but we want to sell some of our goods that you can take home to your pantry.”

New loyalty program coming soon

Currently the brand does not have a loyalty program but will have one soon.

“We are working on the salad club, so hopefully that is a Fall initiative. It will be more like a gym membership, like a class pass of salads that we are working on. So for those who frequent our store, they could access a discount for buying, like a bulk amount of salads.”

The new program will allow frequent consumers to save and to continually enjoy fresh made salads every day at a monthly cost.

Along with the development of a new loyalty program, the brand is also revamping its website to include a new clothing line which will hopefully be launching in June.

“We are still new to the market, and we are just working on getting our name out there and getting people to try the product, which has been our biggest challenge, but we have been working with the community, with schools, and we have been trying to do some catering donations to get people to try the product. We have a lot of returned customers, which is great, so we will continue to spread awareness of our products.”

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