The Toronto Filming Locations You Can Walk To Between TIFF Screenings
Toronto spends most of the year playing other cities. For eleven days in September it gets to play itself — and five filming locations sit within a ten-minute walk of our door.
TIFF takes over the theatres downtown every September. Between screenings, a surprising amount of downtown Toronto is a film set you can walk through — and the shortest of those walks ends at our door.
Toronto has spent forty years playing other cities. Pittsburgh, Baltimore, New York, and a long list of unnamed American metropolises with suspiciously clean subway platforms. For eleven days in September the city finally gets to play itself, and the gap between two screenings turns out to be the best window there is for going and standing in a place you have already watched.
We are at Yonge and Wellesley. Five film and television locations sit within about a ten-minute walk of our front door. Four more are one to three stops away on Line 1. What follows is a route rather than a list, and it is built around the fact that somewhere in the middle of it you are going to be hungry.
The short version
| Where we are | RAMEN RAIJIN, 24 Wellesley St. West Rear, Toronto — set back behind the building, so look for the lane |
| Nearest station | Wellesley Station, Line 1 — about one minute on foot |
| Hours | Sunday to Thursday, noon to 10:30 PM (last order 10:00 PM). Friday and Saturday, noon to 11:00 PM (last order 10:30 PM) |
| From TIFF Lightbox | About 20 minutes — walk to St Andrew Station, then Line 1 toward Finch via Union, six stops to Wellesley |
| From the John Bassett Theatre | About 15 to 20 minutes — Union Station, Line 1 northbound, five stops to Wellesley |
| Locations within about a ten-minute walk | Five |
| Locations within three subway stops | Four more |
| Phone | 647-348-0667 |
If you are here for TIFF, read this part first
Toronto International Film Festival 2026
September 10 – 20, 2026
Screening venues: TIFF Lightbox (350 King Street West), Roy Thomson Hall, the Scotiabank Theatre (259 Richmond Street West), and the John Bassett Theatre inside the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.
Full schedule, tickets and venue details: tiff.net
All of the venues are clustered south and west of us, and all of them are a straight run up Line 1 from either St Andrew or Union.
Now the honest part, because we would rather you plan around it than turn up to a closed door. Our last order is 10:00 PM Sunday through Thursday and 10:30 PM on Friday and Saturday.
An early-evening screening works comfortably
A 6:00 PM film at the Lightbox lets out somewhere around 8:15, and you can be sitting down here by about 8:40.
A late show does not — eat first
Come at 5:00 or 6:00 PM, then head south on Line 1 to your venue. You will get there with time to spare.
The best of all
Walk the locations below in the afternoon, eat, then go to your evening screening with your feet already tired.
Five filming locations within about a ten-minute walk
Open the whole walking route in Google Maps — our door to the Toronto Reference Library, by way of The Carlu, Woody’s and the Legislature.
| Location | What was shot there | From our door |
|---|---|---|
| Yonge Street, College to Wellesley | Suicide Squad (2016) | 1 minute |
| Church Street and Woody’s, 465–467 Church St | Queer as Folk (2000–2005) | 6 minutes |
| The Carlu, 444 Yonge St at College | The Shape of Water (2017) | 7 minutes |
| Ontario Legislature, Queen’s Park | Chicago (2002), Murdoch Mysteries | 10 minutes |
| Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge St | Red (2010), The Weeknd’s “Secrets” | 10 minutes |
Yonge Street, between College and Wellesley
Start by looking left and right outside our lane, because you are already standing in it. The plane-crash sequence in Suicide Squad was shot on this stretch of Yonge. It is an ordinary block of drug stores and bubble tea on a Tuesday afternoon, which is exactly why Toronto keeps getting cast.
Church Street and Woody’s
Walk east along Wellesley for about six minutes and you arrive in the Church-Wellesley Village, which spent five years pretending to be Liberty Avenue in Pittsburgh. Queer as Folk shot its street exteriors here, and Woody’s at 465–467 Church Street played itself — the bar’s real exterior appeared with almost no disguise, and later in the series the same exterior was dressed as a different bar called Moosie’s. It is still open. You can have a drink in a set.
The Carlu, 444 Yonge Street
Seven minutes south, on the seventh floor of College Park, is a 1930 Art Deco hall originally built as Eaton’s Seventh Floor. In The Shape of Water, it is where Dr Hoffstetler meets his handler. It is a private event venue, so the interior is not open to drop-ins — but the College Park building and its lobby are, and the exterior is the part you will recognise.
The Ontario Legislature at Queen’s Park
Ten minutes straight west, at the far end of our own street. The pink sandstone legislature played the courthouse steps in Chicago (2002) — the press-conference scene — and the Legislative Assembly has hosted Murdoch Mysteries shoots inside the building. The lawn in front is public and open all year, which makes this the easiest stop on the list.
Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge Street
Ten minutes north, or one stop to Bloor-Yonge if your legs are already done. Raymond Moriyama’s atrium — five tiers of balconies wrapped around an open well — is the library in Red (2010), and The Weeknd shot the video for “Secrets” inside it. Free, indoors, and the best wet-afternoon stop on this page. The glass skylight over the atrium is being replaced until the end of October, so floors close at short notice and the building opens at 11:00 AM on weekdays (9:00 AM Saturday, noon Sunday) — check the library’s hours before you walk up.
Two more, if you have the whole afternoon
University of Toronto, Victoria College
Twelve minutes northwest, on the east side of Queen’s Park. Netflix’s BET — the live-action adaptation of Kakegurui — used the U of T campus as its elite private academy, and the buildings named in the production listings are Victoria College at 73 Queen’s Park Crescent East, Emmanuel College next door at number 75, and Wycliffe College on Hoskin Avenue. It is the closest major Netflix production to our restaurant. The Collegiate Gothic quads look exactly as they do on screen, because nothing was added.
Allan Gardens, 160 Gerrard Street East
Seventeen minutes southeast, and the best single stop on this whole page. The park is where Luther and Allison dance in episode six of The Umbrella Academy, and Butcher and Hughie share a bench here in The Boys. The Victorian glass conservatory beside it is free and warm in the rain — open daily, 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
One to three stops on the subway
| Location | What was shot there | Getting there from us |
|---|---|---|
| Sankofa Square, formerly Yonge-Dundas Square | The Handmaid’s Tale, Suicide Squad, Kick-Ass | 2 stops south on Line 1 |
| Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre, 189 Yonge St | The Shape of Water, The Umbrella Academy | 3 stops south, then a 2-minute walk |
| Lower Bay Station, beneath Bay Station | Don’t Say a Word, New York Minute, Resident Evil: Retribution and dozens more | 2 stops, but closed to the public |
| Casa Loma, 1 Austin Terrace | X-Men — Xavier’s School | About 30 minutes by TTC, including a steep ten-minute walk up from Dupont Station |
Sankofa Square is the square you have seen destroyed several times. Suicide Squad wrecked it, Kick-Ass used it as New York with the old Sam the Record Man sign still spinning, and The Handmaid’s Tale shot here too. Two stops, and you can walk back up Yonge afterwards.
The Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre is the double-decker Edwardian theatre complex that Guillermo del Toro used in The Shape of Water. During TIFF it is worth checking whether anything is screening there, because seeing a film in a filming location is a specific kind of good.
Lower Bay Station is the one film obsessives ask about: a complete abandoned subway platform under Bay Station that has stood in for New York, Chicago, Moscow and Newark in more films than anyone has properly counted. It is not open to the public. It opens occasionally for special events such as Doors Open Toronto, and that is the only way in — so treat this one as a fact to know rather than a stop to make.
We were listed on Netflix’s own map
Netflix Canada runs a bilingual site called Netflix in Your Neighbourhood, which maps real filming locations across the country so fans can go and visit them. After the site’s August 2025 update, RAMEN RAIJIN was listed on it as a local recommended stop — specifically because BET was filmed close to us, up on the University of Toronto campus. The line-up on that site changes from time to time and we are not on the current version, but the reason we were on it has not moved: the campus is a twelve-minute walk from our door.
We have been making ramen at the back of this lot since 2012, one shop and no second location, and the film crews arrived on their own schedule.
We have written about it separately, in our post on being listed by Netflix in Your Neighbourhood.
Three routes, depending on your day
You have an evening screening
Arrive at Wellesley Station around 4:30 PM. Yonge Street block, Church Street and Woody’s, back along Wellesley. Eat at 6:00. Line 1 south to St Andrew or Union by 7:30.
You just came out of a matinee
Line 1 north to Wellesley, eat first, then walk it off: Yonge block, The Carlu, Church Street, then west along Wellesley to Queen’s Park. About an hour of walking, all of it flat.
It is raining, which it will be
Eat, then ten minutes north to the Toronto Reference Library atrium, or two stops south to the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre, or southeast to the Allan Gardens conservatory. All three are indoors. Check the times first: during the renovation the library opens at 11:00 AM on weekdays, and the conservatory closes at 5:00 PM.
What to order when you get here
We have been making ramen on this block since 2012, one shop, no second location. If you have walked for an hour, these are the four we would point you at:
| Hakata Tonkotsu Ramen | The pork broth the shop was built on. The default answer. |
| Rich Gyokai Tonkotsu Tsuke-men | Cold noodles, hot concentrated dipping broth. Better than it sounds and the right thing after walking. |
| Vegan Spicy Miso Ramen | No animal products in the bowl. Worth knowing that our kitchen shares equipment with meat dishes, so if you need strict separation please tell us before you order and we will be straight with you. |
| Spicy Taiwan Mazesoba | No soup, spicy minced pork, raw garlic. Dine-in only, so this one is a reason to sit down rather than take away. |
The full list is on the menu page. During festival week we would reserve if you are more than two people.
Frequently asked questions
How far is RAMEN RAIJIN from TIFF Lightbox?
About 20 minutes door to door. Walk to St Andrew Station, take Line 1 toward Finch, via Union, six stops to Wellesley Station, and we are about a minute from the exit at 24 Wellesley St. West Rear.
Are you open late enough to eat after a TIFF screening?
It depends on the screening time. Our last order is 10:00 PM Sunday to Thursday and 10:30 PM on Friday and Saturday. A 6:00 PM screening downtown works comfortably. A 9:00 PM screening does not, so for a late show please eat before instead.
What movies and TV shows were filmed near Yonge and Wellesley?
Within about a ten-minute walk: the plane-crash sequence from Suicide Squad on Yonge Street between College and Wellesley, the Liberty Avenue exteriors from Queer as Folk around Church Street including Woody’s at 465-467 Church Street, The Shape of Water at The Carlu at 444 Yonge Street, the Ontario Legislature at Queen’s Park which played the courthouse steps in Chicago (2002), and the Toronto Reference Library at 789 Yonge Street from Red (2010). Netflix’s BET was filmed on the University of Toronto campus, at Victoria College and Emmanuel College on Queen’s Park Crescent East, about twelve minutes northwest.
Can I walk the Toronto filming locations in one afternoon?
Yes. The cluster around Yonge and Wellesley is about an hour of walking in total, all of it flat, and Sankofa Square and the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre are two to three stops south on Line 1.
Is RAMEN RAIJIN listed on Netflix in Your Neighbourhood?
RAMEN RAIJIN was listed as a local recommended stop on Netflix Canada’s Netflix in Your Neighbourhood site after its August 2025 update, because the Netflix series BET was filmed close to the restaurant. The site’s line-up changes over time, and we are not on the current version.
Can I visit Lower Bay Station?
No. Lower Bay is an abandoned platform beneath Bay Station and is closed to the public. It opens occasionally for special events such as Doors Open Toronto, and that is the only way to see it.
Do I need a reservation during TIFF?
Walk-ins are welcome, but festival week is busy in the evenings. If you are a group of three or more we would reserve a table in advance.
Where exactly is the restaurant?
24 Wellesley St. West Rear, Toronto, ON M4Y 2X6. The shop sits at the back of the property, so look for the lane rather than a storefront on Wellesley. It is about one minute from Wellesley Station on Line 1. Phone 647-348-0667.
Come and eat in the middle of your walk.
Eleven days a year Toronto gets to be Toronto. The rest of the year it is Pittsburgh, or Baltimore, or New York with the signs swapped out. Either way, the ramen is the same. 🍜
RESERVE A TABLE SEE THE MENUOrder frozen ramen (ships within Ontario) · Merch
Food and shopfront photographs © RAMEN RAIJIN.
Toronto Reference Library interior: photograph by Raysonho @ Open Grid Scheduler / Grid Engine, released under CC0 1.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Allan Gardens Conservatory: photograph by Onasill ~ Bill Badzo, Public Domain Mark 1.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
RAMEN RAIJIN is an independent restaurant. We are not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by the Toronto International Film Festival, Netflix, or any studio or production named on this page. All film and television titles belong to their respective owners, and no film stills are reproduced here.
