Laid off but undeterred: how this queer couple built Understory coffee shop in Toronto

There’s a new coffee shop for those in Toronto’s Church and Wellesley gayborhood.

Understory opened last month. It’s the creation of partners Dani and Rowan. Both are trans and are determined to make Understory as welcoming and inclusive a location as possible.

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Dani was raised in Ontario, Canada. She went to school to study advertising and moved to Toronto after graduation to be an art director. Eventually, she became a VP Creative Director at one of the largest agencies in Canada.

Rowan was born and raised in the Ottawa/Gatineau area and spent his entire life there until moving to Toronto in 2023.

“I’ve worn many hats, but in the last decade I worked as an author, human rights activist, and DEI speaker. My two memoirs were both Canadian bestsellers focusing on trans rights and mental health,” he tells GayCities.

Meeting

The two met through a mutual friend online. After becoming friends over the phone, Dani invited Rowan to join her for a weekend in Montreal while she was there, since Montreal was much closer to Rowan in Ottawa than Toronto. At the time, they were both coming out of difficult relationships and quickly bonded over their similar situations.

“When we finally met in person, there was an instant connection, but neither of us wanted to make the other uncomfortable, so we kept things strictly platonic,” they say. “Even as friends, we ended up having a truly magical weekend in Montreal. Almost fatefully, we found ourselves touring coffee shops around the city, bonding over our shared love of coffee and beautiful shared spaces. We stayed in almost constant contact in the weeks that followed.”

“Eventually, we both had to admit that our connection was more than friendship, and that’s when our relationship truly began.”

A few months later, Rowan was packing up his house and moving to Toronto to be closer to Dani. They’ve been building their life together ever since.

Laid off

They’d both independently dreamt of running a coffee shop one day. Then fate intervened – and didn’t hold back. Within the same week, Dani was laid off from her leadership role at her advertising agency, and Rowan’s queer slice-of-life show, which had been in development for months, was quietly turned down in the shifting political climate. Around the same time, much of his DEI consulting work also began to dry up.

“It felt like a moment where forces outside our control were suddenly deciding our futures. So we decided to take matters into our own hands.”

Dani vowed never again to have her destiny determined by a number on a spreadsheet, and Rowan chose to fully take control of his career for the first time. Instead of waiting for permission or the next opportunity, they decided to build something of their own.

“We put our business plan together within a week of deciding in early April that we were really going to do this, and before long we had secured financing and signed a lease in Toronto’s Village. Then the hard part began, the long stretch of permits, approvals, and waiting for construction to start,” says Rowan.

“Construction didn’t actually begin until November and finally wrapped up in mid-January. We had originally hoped to open in Fall 2025, but reality pushed that timeline. We ultimately opened our doors on January 30, 2026.

“In the months in between, we focused on building the Understory brand online, sharing updates and filming our progress so people could follow along as the space came to life. By the time we opened, the community already felt invested in what we were creating, and it truly paid off. We’ve been very busy ever since we opened!”

Challenges and rewards

They say the biggest challenge is overcoming a number of delays that were out of their control. This included waiting upon permits or equipment delivery from across Canada. They also put themselves under a lot of pressure to get everything right for the community they wanted to serve.

“There were definitely tears along the way, but thankfully very little conflict between us. We’re good at recognizing when the other person is having a tough day and stepping in to support them. When one of us is down, the other is always there to lift them up, and that’s what carried us through the hardest parts.”

Now that Understory is open, the couple are beginning to see the rewards of all their work.

“Seeing the community embrace what we’ve created has been the most fulfilling experience of our lives. We’ve both created work that has reached people before—Dani through advertising campaigns and Rowan through his writing—but this is the first time we’ve been able to witness people’s joy in real time, in a space we built with our own hands and hearts.

“People have welcomed us into the neighbourhood with open arms, often pointing out details they love that were very intentional choices on our part. It’s incredibly validating to see that all the research, communication, and instinct we poured into this project actually resonated. All the time and care we invested really mattered.”

“Historic community”

The scale of what they’ve built is only just beginning to sink in.

“One customer told us, ‘You’re part of history now. You opened a café in the Village,’ and that moment made everything suddenly feel very real. Toronto’s Gay Village is such a meaningful and historic community, and to be welcomed into that legacy alongside other iconic local businesses is an honor beyond anything we imagined when we started this journey.”

Understory, 505 Church Street, Toronto, Ontario M4Y 1H2.

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