Taste of the Kingsway 2026: Dates, Hours, Getting There, Parking and What to See

Taste of the Kingsway runs Friday September 11 to Sunday September 13, 2026. Bloor Street West closes to traffic from Prince Edward Drive to Montgomery Road, and the pavement becomes the venue. Friday is 6pm to 10pm, Saturday is 11am to 10pm, Sunday is 11am to 7pm. It is free to walk in. Take the subway to Royal York station if you can, because it lets out in the middle of the festival and half the nearby parking sits on streets that are closed for the weekend.

This is a neighbourhood street festival, not an exhibition. Three days, about eight hundred metres of Bloor, two stages, and a lot of people who live within walking distance. That is the appeal.

Curious what living in this pocket of Etobicoke is actually like the other fifty-one weekends of the year? Read our Etobicoke neighbourhood guides.

Dates and hours

Source: Kingsway BIA road closure notice for Taste of The Kingsway 2026. Verified September 11, 2026.

Admission is free. The festival is presented by Mantella Corporation and organized by the Kingsway BIA, whose office is at 3029 Bloor Street West.

Where it is

The closed stretch runs from Prince Edward Drive at the east end to Montgomery Road at the west end, with Royal York station roughly in the middle. That is about eight hundred metres, which is a comfortable walk end to end and back with a stop for food. Royal York Road, Prince Edward Drive and Montgomery Road themselves all stay open.

Getting there

Subway is the easy answer. Take TTC Line 2 to Royal York station and you come up inside the festival. No parking decision, no walk from a side street, and you can stay for a drink without thinking about it.

The BIA also points to several bus routes serving the area, including the 66 Prince Edward and the Royal York buses running north and south along Royal York Road. Check the TTC trip planner the day of, because the Bloor closure affects surface routes through the stretch.

Parking, and which lots are actually usable

Here is the part worth reading twice. The Kingsway has six Green P lots, and three of them sit on streets that are closed from Bloor down to the laneway for the weekend. Access to those is not straightforward while the festival is running.

Rates as published by the Kingsway BIA for 2025/2026. Closure status from the BIA road closure notice. Confirm current rates with Green P before you go.

Carpark 505 on Royal York Road and Carpark 502 on Prince Edward Drive North are the two on streets that stay open, so start there. And do not improvise a spot on a residential street. The closure notice says it plainly: parking on residential streets may result in fines.

If the festival has you looking at the neighbourhood differently:

• Living in The Kingsway 2026: Home Prices, Lifestyle and What Buyers Should Know
• Neighbourhood Spotlight: Kingsway South
• The Great Name Heist: How Islington Became Islington

What is actually on

The lineup is built around food from the restaurants already on this stretch, plus visiting vendors. Beyond eating, the BIA has confirmed these for 2026:

• Two stages of live music and entertainment, with the main stage sponsored by The Humberview Group
• A licensed beverage garden run with Great Lakes Brewery
• An NHL Alumni meet and greet, back again this year
• A bouncy castle fun zone for kids
• Artisan and marketplace vendors alongside the food
• Free balloons at the BIA tent at Royal York, Saturday and Sunday, 1:00pm to 4:00pm

The festival's charity partner is Campfire Circle, which runs camp-themed programs for children and families affected by childhood cancer. Their fun zone includes a canine circus and a rock climbing setup.

One practical note. Photography and video recording happen throughout the event, and entering the festival area counts as consent to being recorded. Worth knowing if that matters to you.

If you live nearby

This section is for the people on the side streets, because the festival affects you more than anyone.

Bloor Street West is closed from Friday September 11 at 11:00am straight through to Monday September 14 at 1:00am. That is a continuous closure, not a nightly one. Inside the closed area there is no vehicle traffic at all, and no in or out privileges except for emergency and City vehicles. Plan your car around it rather than expecting to slip through.

Eleven side streets are closed from Bloor down to the laneway, from Friday at 11:00am until Sunday at 11:59pm:

Source: Kingsway BIA road closure notice, Taste of The Kingsway 2026.

If you need your car over the weekend, move it out to Royal York, Prince Edward or Montgomery before Friday at 11am. Once the barricades go up, getting a vehicle out from behind them is not a conversation you want to be having on a Saturday afternoon.

Questions about the closure itself go to the Kingsway BIA at 416-239-8243.

Worth the walk

A three-day street festival will not change what a house on Thompson or Cliveden is worth. What it does tell you is something harder to read off a listing: whether the main street works. The Kingsway has an intact retail strip with restaurants people actually walk to, a subway station in the middle of it, and a business association organized enough to close Bloor for a weekend and fill it. Plenty of Toronto neighbourhoods have the housing stock and not the street. This one has both.

If you are in the area anyway, go Sunday afternoon. Smaller crowds than Saturday night, everything still open, and you can park and walk without a strategy.

Details here were verified against Kingsway BIA sources on September 11, 2026. Check the BIA site before you head out in case anything shifts.

If the weekend has you wondering what it would take to live within walking distance of this, we can tell you what is available on these streets right now and what it actually costs. No pressure and no drip campaign, just the numbers. Book a call.

Dave Dubbin
Etobicoke Real Estate Expert
Dave Dubbin & Associates
Real Estate Broker for Etobicoke and Toronto
Sotheby's International Realty, Canada