Sizzle and Sail: Epilogue

11/11/2024

It’s been a couple of weeks since we closed up shop at the WW pop-up, and it’s that kind of bitter-sweetness that lingers in the air long after the lights are out. The last week had the whole gang from the neighboring stalls—Oysters, Scooped, and Dave’s Grill—crowding around our place, swapping stories, tossing around jokes. We passed the slow hours with dice games and tabletop curling right there on the bar, just killing time until the inevitable. I even gave a few of them a crash course on my one-wheel hoverboard. Strange little tribe we’d built there. I knew I’d miss them all.

That week, Kid decided to throw some black box challenges my way—leftover steak from our beef tartare, scraps that would’ve gone to waste. He wanted to see if I still had it in me, mentally and creatively, for whatever came next on this tour.

On Thursday, Kwezi’s last shift, I stayed late, nursing drinks with him, Spam, and Lee from Scooped. The night slipped by in a blur of conversations about nothing and everything, karaoke through our scratchy old kitchen speaker, then a ride on bikes and one-wheels back to my car. The kind of night that feels like it should last a few more hours.

“Want a cigarette?” I asked, already digging through my bag.

“You’re saying I can smoke in the car?” Spam was incredulous.

“Hell, I’ll join you,” Kwezi chimed in.

For a while, we just rode in silence, the hum of the car, a Kanye track low in the background, smoke curling out of half-cracked windows. Then Spam spoke up, almost to himself: “A late-night road trip with Kanye playing, a cigarette in my hand, my buddies up front. What more can you ask for?”

After that, anytime I heard a Creed song, I’d picture Spam singing along, cigarette in hand, half-asleep in the passenger seat. I dropped him off, then Kwezi and I sat there a while, talking about our time at WW. Thirty-hour weeks, the grind, the laughs. Felt like talking to a friend you know you won’t see for a long time but won’t forget, either.

My last day with Jojo was a kind of epilogue to it all. He’d just gotten back from Vietnam, and we spent the day catching up, diving into the debates we’d never quite finished—East versus West, the never-ending flux of Toronto’s food scene, what it all means, if it means anything. We both knew I’d miss those talks.

The last Sunday felt anticlimactic, like the end of a short TV series cut off before the big finale. No fanfare. No speeches. We got in, gutted the stall, and left as fast as we could. That night, we raised our glasses at Civil. Spam, Jo, and Kwezi joked about having an “affair” with each other, three-way, all laughs, but you could feel it. We were winding down, reminiscing on the best and worst of it, like you do when you know you’re heading back to reality. Felt like summer camp was over.

Now, we’ve scattered:

Kwezi’s taking on solo tech gigs for the Captain.

Kid and I are back at the mother ship.

Jo’s figuring out the ropes of married life and looking for new ways to make rent.

Spam’s locked in for the Christmas location.

Bryan’s finishing up culinary school at George Brown.

Aaron—still hanging on at the Michelin-starred spot, at least for now.
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It was a flash, here and gone, but it’ll stick with me. The way these short, blistering seasons always do.