If you're going to be enjoying organic, fair-trade coffee, you might as well get there in an environmental fashion. And if it just so happens to fit your image, so be it. If there's anything patrons of Toronto's indie cafés like more than Animal Collective and MacBooks, it's cycling. The full bike racks outside Jet Fuel and Cherry Bomb can attest to that. The indies have been offering free wi-fi and piping in Pitchfork-friendly tunes for years, but as far as we can tell, Sonic is the first to cater specifically to cyclists.

Anthony D'Arcy (also the owner of the Dundas West bar Magpie) bought the Kensington Market-neighbouring Cecil Street space long before he knew what to do with it. D'arcy, who himself has spent many years in the DIY bike circuit, came up with the concept when he realized how central and accessible the location is. Come summer, Sonic will provide tools for do-it-yourself bike repair, allowing cyclists to fix up their ride while enjoying a (fair-trade, naturally) coffee out on the café's front patio. It's only a matter of time before someone informs the couriers.

The space itself is a bit unusual. Once home to an old coach house (and it shows), the café contains just a few seats on its first floor, a small window where the baristas whip up the joe, and a colourful neon piano (which eventually will play host to White Cowbell Oklahoma's Meher Steinberg). There are a few more tables upstairs and a prime second-floor patio, but Sonic is much more conspicuous from the outside. Eschewing a traditional sign, Sonic's exterior itself is painted and bannered by East Coast artist Christian Toth (who also has some photography on the walls) and an actual bicycle hangs off the building.

It may be located east of Spadina, but Sonic has more of an "old Kensington" feel than most of the Market's current inhabitants. And why not? It's just a short bike ride away.