Commute Home is my perfect design store. There are many design stores to love in this city, but Commute's inventory of constantly fresh products and designs appeal to my short attention span. If you've got an Ikea problem, their distinctive brand of home furnishings will cure it, assuming money is no object of course.

Their showroom is a carefully curated and ever evolving mix of products that are either for sale or just please the owners mightily to have around.

There is always some refurbished office or industrial lighting from the past and some current work that is intended to look timeless.

Indeed, a hallmark of the best Commute work is that it literally defies dating. Early on in my visits to the store I overheard someone ask "Is that from the 50's or Russia or what?", I find myself repeating that very question almost every time I go in.

Through their commissioned works for some big name restaurants, Sara Parisotto and Hamid Samad who co-own Commute, have left their subtle signature all over town and beyond. If you've ever eaten at Terroni's Queen location you've seen their work.

There is no bored salesgirl or overeager greeter here - the staff are working on their next design. The "sales desk" is always cluttered with things like textbooks, research material or, test pieces.

You can literally see things travel from prototype to product in store. It's the "open kitchen" restaurant applied to design.

A business model that has more in common with a bakery like Pain Perdu than a furniture store like the Brick. If they could persuade people to eat their dinner tables instead of eating at them - they'd be rich.