Our Go-To Guide for Spring in Toronto

Spring has officially sprung, and we could not be more excited to Honk around town! After months of cold, snow and little sunlight, you can be sure to find us Honkers out and about taking advantage of the spring weather at our favourite places.

Take a look below for a glimpse into our spring go-to’s:

1. Evergreen Brickworks Farmers Market.

Saturday mornings at the market are our happy place. Hands-down the best crêpes in Toronto, this alone is worth the trip.  The produce, flowers, family and bike-friendly programming are favourites amongst the office.  The market isn't served well by transit, so best to take the car and giggle as you walk past the lineup at the pay station knowing you've paid on your phone with Honk so you can get to Chocosol that much quicker!

Bonus: 3 parking lots on-site that accept Honk.

2. Cherry Blossoms in High Park.

The Toronto island is under water, so High Park will be your only chance to get a glimpse and a whiff of these beauties this spring. Good for all ages, making a trip to High Park in late April or early May to admire the cherry blossoms is a highlight of springtime in Toronto. It gets super busy; so we suggest going early in the day to beat the swarms of tourists.  If you've missed the cherry blossoms this year, High park is still a great destination for a picnic, a walk by the water or to take a peek at the animals in the zoo. 

3. Run along the Lakeshore.

As soon as warm weather hits, runners seem to come out of hibernation and invade the city. We have a couple of runners at Honk, and you can be sure to see them running along the Lakeshore on weekend mornings. The Toronto waterfront has a series of amazing trails, good for biking, running, walking the (office) dog and generally enjoying the south end of the city. 

4. Jays Game.

We'll just put it out there. They're off to a rough start. But to say Honk HQ is made up of sports fans is an understatement. You won't find any fairweather fans here and our loyalty has paid off, with the Jays being on a tear as of late. It'll be tight to make the playoffs but we follow our boys of summer, all the way through. (Updated: June 1st) And can you really beat a sunny Saturday afternoon at Rogers Centre, with the Dome open?  

Parking secret: 15 Fort York/11-15 Brunel Court has an unbeatable day rate of $8 (even on game days!)

5. Patio Season.

Last but not least - spring means patio season. Suffice to say, there are tons of different neighbourhoods across the city with great patios, and great deals.

Remember though: If you're driving, you should have a DD or use Honk to top up your time till you're sober.

Our top 5 patios for spring:

1. Gusto 101 in King West

2. Bellwoods Brewery in Queen West

3. Amsterdam Brewhouse by Lakeshore

4. The 3 Speed in Dundas West

5. Hemingway’s in Yorkville

Meet the Honkers.

Adam Jasiura.

Developer. Dad. Kimchii Addict.

Honk: What does a day in the life at Honk look like for you?

Adam: After I drop the kid off at school and subway up to the office, we do the daily developer team stand-up meeting, where we check in with what we're working on. We're a startup, so our priorities are a moving target, and the team does frequent re-evaluations about what's most important for each of us to be working on.

Every week has its own flow (don't push live code on a Friday afternoon. Don't.) It's busy, but I never feel like it's chaotic. I try to focus on the work, and I hustle to contribute however I can with the time I have, until I haul home to make dinner.

Honk: What’s the most exciting project you worked on to-date at Honk?

Adam: Rebuilding and rebranding the Honk app version 2.0 was pretty exciting. The team had built up some experience with the programming tools, and we had the advantage of an already-working app, with customers. We got to put down a layer of design ideas for branding and user interface, and then we were off.

Some days programming is methodical detective work, or careful modelling, but this felt like a huge amount of productivity in a short amount of time, and every day we got a lot of visible feedback. Plus, we had divided the work up in such a way that each developer worked on pieces, and wiring them together was really satisfying.

I hope our customers like it - we're not done yet!

Pictured above: One of Adam's top waffle recipes at the moment. Based off of Food.com's Waffle of Insane Greatness Recipe.

Honk: Your journey leading up to Honk isn’t what we’d call the typical developer’s path. Tell us a little about your past work experience, and how you landed at Honk as developer.

Adam: Yeah... I definitely engaged in a little career randomness. I don't have a technical education at all (my degree is in Latin, and I have a Bachelor of Education). I'm working as a developer now because I obtained an HR certification, and I moved back to Toronto hoping to do HR for medium-sized tech companies. I made some dev friends and worked on my programming in my off time to make myself more marketable. I ended up getting a small internship with a knowledgeable senior developer at a real-estate startup doing just code work, and I've been doing it ever since.

Before that, I also left a trail of past attempted careers, including: teacher, barista, insurance salesman, travelling document imager (which included living in hotels for 2 years), drywaller, lumber mill labourer, newspaper ad designer... plus I had a job where I got to dress up and act like a fur trader.

Honk: When not at work, where are you most likely to be found?

Adam: The kitchen, probably. I'm constantly tweaking the family waffle recipe. My daughter and I are still somehow into Pokemon GO, so every outing is an opportunity to go a-catching. I also just got back into jujitsu after a too-long break - it's great for clearing away the day's concerns, and it carries over to so many other parts of life.