Call it a symptom of the new dining culture in Toronto, where a little bit of hype goes a long way. Restaurants once had the luxury of opening quietly and working out the kinks, but with an online cottage industry of restaurant news and previews gaining more and more traction, spots with any modicum of buzz are typically overrun within the first few days.
Where restaurants once had to wait for the first major review to come out before picking up steam, the popularization of social networking tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, and Foursquare, along with amateur forums like Chowhound and Urbanspoon, have provided plenty of outlets for average diners to lodge criticism instantly, often as early as opening night.