Design studio Odami’s interiors add much needed warmth to cold retail space

Park the DeLorean at the intersection of Yorkville Avenue and Yonge Street. Check the Flux Capacitor and set the time controls to 1966. After achieving 141.6 kilometres an hour (88 mph), you’re going to see some serious stuff.

First, as far as the eye can see, it’ll be Victorian Bay-and-Gable houses: all skinny, some with gingerbread trim intact, and all with their front lawns replaced by pavement. Every house – converted to retail shops and coffee houses – sports a stoop, and most have a low, iron fence dividing the property. Some have narrow staircases that lead down to basement rooms such as the one at famed The Riverboat coffee house at No. 134 Yorkville. Signage is bohemian, hand-painted and charming. But what you’ll really notice are the throngs and throngs of teenagers and twentysomethings, all sitting, leaning, strumming, strutting – and most with those messy Beatle haircuts.