Netflix movie shoot makes life difficult for Toronto business but there's a happy ending
Small businesses have had it rough this year and for Home Appliances, a popular food truck in Toronto, the past week had more complications than usual.
Arriving at their usual location earlier this week, a film crew for Netflix's upcoming series Kings of Napa had already set up outside the truck's lot.
The previous week, Home Appliances had been alerted that the production (produced by Oprah herself) would be filming in the area and were totally okay with it.
The crew was cooperative and agreed to keep entrances to the food truck open, as well as sidewalks mostly clear.
However, it was noticed that cable boxes had been set up right in one of the gardens that the food truck's owners had planted themselves.
"I thought Oh. That's an interesting spot to put it," Jennifer Liu co-owner of Home Appliances told blogTO.
"We didn't say anything at first because we thought maybe it's temporary, surely they know it's part of the garden."
However, as the day went on they not only saw cable boxes trampling their garden, but people were also walking across it with little respect for their property.
Liu posted something to the truck's Instagram story poking fun at the situation and explaining what happened and how they were upset for the lack of respect shown to their property.
What followed was an outpouring of support from the local community, both people they knew well and many they didn't know at all.
A number of people offered their own plants and volunteered helping to restore the garden.
Others had experience in the film industry and used resources at hand to find out what production company was involved and how they could be contacted.
"The reaction from the community was so supportive, it was like that shouldn't have happened its your garden we encourage you to speak up so this can get resolved in a civil way," said Liu.
After reaching out, the locations manager was extremely apologetic and offered to make things right. They offered to replant the garden, but Liu and her partner Rob had other ideas.
The two proposed that instead of simply replacing the garden, that the production makes a donation to Davisville Garden, a local nonprofit that works through Appletree Markets to plant community gardens.
The Davisville Garden team had previously reached out to the Home Appliances food truck team about putting up a garden in their space.
With their current garden trampled, this seemed like the logical next step, and the Netflix production team was more than happy to make a donation.
Now, next to the Home Appliances food truck will soon be a beautiful community garden filled with vegetables and herbs. Everything from basil, mint and lavender to carrots, tomatoes and peppers is being prepared for planting.
"I'm really happy that we're going to end up with a garden that our community can literally eat from. Everyone will have a piece of our space, our lot, and our business that can be their own. I couldn't have asked for a happier ending," siad Liu.
While Netflix's specials may be known best for crime thrillers and absurdist reality television, sometimes their productions can deliver those happy endings in the most unexpected of ways.
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