It’s been an unnerving, albeit bittersweet week for the staff and owners of Goldstruck Coffee, after two incidents—in the early hours of March 16 and again March 23—left smashed glass doors at its Richmond Street location.
These followed a graffiti incident, on or around Feb. 22, in which a Star of David was found on the outside of the business’s soon to open third location, on Carlton Street, plus a prior smashed glass door incident on Richmond Street in May 2024.
The incident March 16 was part of a string of reported break-ins in the area that night, according to police. Goldstruck’s cash register was also taken in that smash-and-grab.
Toronto Police Services (TPS) spokesperson Stephanie Sayer confirmed two recent reports related to Goldstruck Coffee in an email to The CJN. Police consider the March 16 break and enter “one of six break-ins reported in the area that day, which we believe were committed by the same individual,” according to Sayer.
The March 23 report, she wrote, pertains to a “mischief incident at the same location… during which the front door glass was smashed.”
At this time, there is no evidence to suggest either incidents were hate-motivated, according to police.
Security video has been provided to TPS, and Goldstruck later also shared the security camera footage of the March 23 incident in a video post.
Sayer added that police did not have reports to date of the Star of David graffiti at a separate location.
How to define a hate crime?
Goldstruck Coffee’s lawyer Margarita Dvorkina—whose parents own the establishment—says it’s up to police to consider if the incidents are linked as potentially being the result of targeting a Jewish business.
“I asked police to look at the two Richmond Street incidents as possible [connected] hate crimes… along with the graffiti incident at Carlton—[but I] haven’t heard back yet about the request” from her contact at TPS, she said.
Prior to the graffiti incident at the as-yet unopened third Goldstruck location, at Carlton and Yonge Streets—which came just as renovations were beginning in February to prepare it for opening—the first broken glass incident, at the location at Richmond and York Streets, had taken place in May of 2024.
But an outpouring of support from the community in the days following the most recent attack has bolstered the family business, bringing customers through the boarded-up front door of its Entertainment District-adjacent location, and steady business at the original café in Yorkville, along with online coffee sales.
“We’re speechless,” said Dvorkina. “We wouldn’t be able to do it without them, everybody who’s stopping by or donating, or just saying good words, reposting [things] online.”
On March 21, about 36 hours before the incident at the Richmond Street location, the café had also put on its monthly event at its Cumberland Street location, in Yorkville, involving an informal art exhibition with the artist speaking about their work, along with a live musician and a relaxed Friday evening vibe. The events often feature Jewish music.
In the security video from the March 23 incident, says Dvorkina, a suspect is seen approaching the door, looked around, and smashed Goldstruck’s glass front door using an object they were carrying. It was just past 4:30 a.m., as seen on the Richmond St. shop’s security video.
It’s clear that the suspect looks both ways first, then only breaks the front door glass and does not attempt to enter or steal from the business, says Dvorkina.
“The person came close to proximity to the window, to the door… they took out a metal rod,” she told The CJN in an interview.
“I’m told that this is a special tool to break glass,” she said, and described the moment the suspect stands at the doorway near the intersection of Richmond and York Streets.
“They looked around, made sure nobody was around, and then they broke the door and glass and left, so there was no attempt to get in,” or to take anything, she said.
“They just wanted to go and inflict damage.”
This is now the fourth incident since May 2024, when the first broken glass incident at the Richmond St. location occurred.
“It first happened last May, somebody broke the glass, broke the door and robbed the shop, and escaped,” said Dvorkina. “Nobody was arrested. Nobody was found.”
Then, on or around Feb. 22 this year, the Star of David appeared to mark the outside of the as-yet unopened third location, at Carlton and Yonge Streets.
“Shortly after we finalized everything, we were about to start renovations and then overnight someone painted a Star of David on the walls of the premises outside,” she said, noting that graffiti and vandalism at two locations of La Briut’s kosher restaurant business had been among other graffiti and vandalism attacks against Jewish businesses in the GTA at the time.
“I think that, just as the majority of the Jewish Canadian community… we do feel targeted,” said Dvorkina. “I do not think [these] are disconnected incidents. They happened so close in proximity, they happened in the backdrop of various protests happening, which are not always necessarily peaceful unfortunately… [and] in the context of growing antisemitism and hate, not just against the Jewish community, but against other minorities as well. So we do feel unfortunately that might very well be connected.”
The couple who built Goldstruck
“They put their blood, sweat, and tears into [this] business to grow it,” says Margarita Dvorkina about her parents. “It was their dream.”
Tatiana Dvorkina and her husband, Mikhail Dvorkin, moved to Canada in 2009 from Siberia, in Russia, with their two children, Margarita and Lev.
“For my brother and I to have a better life,” Margarita Dvorkina said. “And also, as it’s unfortunately the reality [that] in modern Russia, there’s a lot of antisemitism, and that is one thing that [our parents] were obviously hoping to escape.”
After the February graffiti incident at the new location, the break-in at Richmond Street happened around 3 a.m. on March 16, the café’s security camera showed.
“Somebody broke in, shattered, the glass, the door… they came in, stole the cash register with cash… and tried to break into other things at the coffee shop, but then I think they got scared and they went off,” said Margarita.
The location on Richmond Street was finally fixed up on Friday, March 21, and the event was coming up in Yorkville.
“Just as we had finished repairs,” the Cumberland Street café was featuring artist Dina Levin, a painter who’s also the lead singer of a group called Maayan Band.
Levin ended up singing the group’s rendition of “Shalom Aleichem” for impromptu performance that was shared widely on social media, including by Goldstruck.
“People were wishing Shabbat Shalom and tagging us,” said Margarita.
The night was a success, but by early Sunday morning, the family was called down to the other location after its alarm went off. The March 23 incident occurred around 4:30 a.m.
“We waited for the police to come and collect the evidence,” at Richmond Street.
“We had to close down for the day—because it was done, almost as if strategically, on the coldest day of the week. The patrons were cold, the staff were cold, so we had to close down… and obviously replace the door, which we just had finished repairing from before.”
The boarded-up door has to be repaired again, at a cost that’s “a lot to shoulder for a small business,” she said.
But the events will continue, Margarita Dvorkina affirms, thankful for the warm response from patrons and well-wishers.
“We’re trying to stay positive, because… it takes the whole community to stand up to this kind of hate, and I think we can do it if we get together.”
Community rallies around in response
Goldstruck Coffee was humming with activity on March 27, a few days after it drew attention to the string of troubling incidents.
The owners plan to invest in more security cameras, and co-owner Tatiana Dvorkina says she wants to find out if city staff could add cameras to nearby hydro poles to increase what can be captured on video, especially with the incidents taking place in the wee hours.
When the Star of David graffiti appeared at the new location, the ink on the contract was barely dry.
“We opened a new location and the next day that we sign papers, the next night” came the graffiti incident, discovered the following morning, said Tatiana Dvorkina.
“That’s why we are confused. We cannot feel safe because we don’t know what’s what is behind that. We do believe it’s not just … coincidence.”
She’d also like to see increased police patrols overnight near the Richmond St. coffee shop.
“Not just our feelings… our employees do not feel safe. We have people from Philippines, from Bangladesh, from Israel… we have never had any problems like that before, but now all of them feel uncomfortable,” she said.
“Because we don’t know what would be next.”
A love of coffee, art, and music led the family to start the business and include artwork displayed on the walls, and live music.
“I think that coffee is like different worlds… it’s a combination of art and technologies,” said Tatiana. The café’s signature drink is a Halva latte.
The family established Goldstruck at the Cumberland Avenue location in 2016 and managed to survive the pandemic. They built the place from scratch—from a Yorkville storefront that had been a shoe store—and the children, Margarita and Lev, worked there as baristas.
The location further downtown on Richmond St. has been around for just over two years—the new third location near the storied Maple Leaf Gardens building will open April 10. Tatiana says events will continue, with the more evening-suited jazz vibes and a licensed bar in Yorkville. A new daytime dance music party event on Richmond will be part of creating what she calls a “more healthy” experience there—a DJ has promised to pack a special playlist.
Goldstruck’s operations manager Wali Ullah, who hails originally from Bangladesh, says he and his team are frustrated and feeling insecure, and, “in certain ways, mentally and emotionally heartbroken.”
“You know that how it feels when [an unsettling incident] comes from hatred and all these kind of things,” he said, though again acknowledged the support since the incident was made public.
“We are overwhelmed with this love and every day we are getting all these wonderful people they’re coming… they’re sharing their concern, and they’re supporting us.”
The support has gone viral
While reporting for this story on March 27, Ontario energy minister Stephen Lecce and Indigo CEO Heather Reisman introduced themselves to Tatiana Dvorkina and Lena Perelstein, Goldstruck’s finance manager. The pair told the women they had ensured their coffee meeting took place at Goldstruck on Richmond Street.
(Later that same day, news reports said charges had been dropped against two more of the 11 people charged with mischief over the red paint and fake posters plastered on Indigo’s flagship location at Bay and Bloor Streets in November 2023.)
Dina Levin presented her art show at one of the Goldstruck monthly art and music evenings on March 21, and spoke about her paintings, which will be on display in the Yorkville location for a few more weeks.
She reflected on how special it felt to launch into a spontaneous performance of “Shalom Aleichem,” accompanied by her bandmate Dima Graziani, with the sounds of the Shabbat prayer pouring out of the speakers in the twilight hours of a Friday.
“It was [a] very warm [atmosphere]… quite a few people from the audience were regulars in the cafe, and also there was a couple who were new people who just came by for this particular evening.”
The request came from an audience member who recognized that Levin was not only the night’s featured visual artist but also the singer of a spirited rendition, by Toronto’s Maayan Band, of the beloved Shabbat tune.
Levin, who was also born in Russia, lived in Israel before coming to Canada. She says most of the repertoire of Maayan Band is in Hebrew.
The significance of the language is something Jewish musicians have become more conscious of since Oct. 7, she says.
Last summer, before a performance at a city park in Willowdale for the Toronto Undergraduate Jazz Festival, the band felt forced to think about how audiences would react, says Levin
Especially since Oct. 7, she says, the group will consider mixing up songs in Hebrew with others in, say, Ladino, which to many people’s ears sounds like Spanish.
“We were kind of considering… OK, do they even know that we like sing in Hebrew? Do we need additional security or something just in case, because we are outside and we have no idea what the reaction will be?” she said.
“Everything was fine, but the thoughts and the insecurity is there.”
