{"id":900462,"date":"2026-09-18T13:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T13:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/900462\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T13:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T13:12:09","slug":"timeout-names-downtown-st-catharines-coolest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/900462\/","title":{"rendered":"TimeOut names downtown St. Catharines coolest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sorry, Toronto. The seat at the cool kids\u2019 table was given to another city in Ontario further west along the Queen Elizabeth Way. <\/p>\n

TimeOut<\/a> just published its annual list featuring the 40 coolest neighbourhoods worldwide, establishing the ranking off their panel of editors\u2019 evaluations of each neighbourhood. Each community is ranked on a range of criteria, including food, livability and nightlife.<\/p>\n

This year, the only Ontario neighbourhood to make the list was downtown St. Catharines. The neighbourhood placed ninth, ranking higher than areas like West Town in Chicago (18th) and the Financial District in New York (28th). The only other Canadian city to make the list was Mount Pleasant in Vancouver, which came in 35th.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty great feeling, I\u2019m not going to lie,\u201d St. Catharines Mayor Mat Siscoe said in an interview with CTV News. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe know lists like these are subjective, but I think it speaks to the fact that a lot of really fantastic entrepreneurs have poured a lot of their heart and soul into the downtown and that puts us on a level with other communities that I don\u2019t think people necessarily knew about.\u201d<\/p>\n

TimeOut applauded downtown St. Catharines for its mix of local businesses, proximity to some of the \u201cbest\u201d wineries, and waterfront charm. It also pointed to the heritage buildings that line the \u201cBrooklyn-esque\u201d St. Paul Street, Montebello Park (the brainchild of the same designer who created New York\u2019s Central Park) and its historical connections to the Underground Railroad.<\/p>\n

While Siscoe found the comparison to Brooklyn, New York \u201cinteresting,\u201d the mayor gushed over the downtown core, crediting its character and charm to the advent of the Downtown Creative Cluster Master Plan,<\/a> which launched more than 15 years ago. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole idea was to sort of recognize that arts, culture, creativity, independent businesses, those were the things that were the future of the downtown,\u201d Siscoe said. \u201cIt\u2019s been the most successful plan we\u2019ve worked through, it got us through the COVID years and now we\u2019re seeing the results of that hard work.\u201d<\/p>\n

City councillor Robin McPherson, who is one of two councillors who serve Ward 4 of which the downtown core is part of, said she was absolutely thrilled to see the neighbourhood featured on the list among cities like Glasgow, Greece and Rome.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust excited to see our downtown and to see someone who\u2019s not from here acknowledge and kind of see the amazingness that I know we have,\u201d McPherson said.<\/p>\n

The U.K.-based magazine also provided a guide on how to spend the perfect day in downtown St. Catharines, highlighting a range of local spots from where to eat and where to shop, and advised on the best time of year to visit. Some of those businesses included restaurants like Oddbird, It\u2019s About Thyme and the Michelin-recommended Fat Rabbit. The guide also recommends sifting through vinyl at Mindbomb Records, combing through vintage finds at Auds N Ends Boutique and Nac Studio Shop and ending the day with a frosty pint at Merchant Ale House or Trust Beer Bar.<\/p>\n

The travel guide named more than a dozen local businesses, and McPherson said it is nice to see them get the credit that they deserve and \u201cprobably don\u2019t get enough of.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure it was hard for them to fit in all of those restaurants because there\u2019s a whole lot of other ones that I would have included,\u201d the councillor said. <\/p>\n

Ontario\u2019s newly-minted tourism minister Zee Hamid echoed the councillor\u2019s statements, telling CTV News in an email that seeing downtown St. Catharines recognized in this list is just \u201canother example of why Ontario is such a special place to visit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ranking has caused some division online<\/a>, however. <\/p>\n

One thread on Reddit has already garnered dozens of comments. <\/p>\n

Some of the commentors acknowledged the local businesses featured but others questioned whether TimeOut has visited the city or if the post was written by artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

For his part, Siscoe hopes this recent recognition will encourage people who are curious about the city to come by for a visit. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think, even in Niagara, we have folks that have an impression in their head of something that may have existed 10 or 15 years ago, but isn\u2019t what the downtown of today looks like,\u201d Siscoe said. \u201cWe just encourage people to come and experience it.\u201d<\/p>\n

These are the 40 coolest neighbourhoods in the world in 2026: <\/p>\n

Jongno, 3-ga, Seoul, KoreaL\u2019Ocean District, Rabat, MoroccoNeos Kosmos, Athens, GreeceChinatown, Los Angeles, U.S.Govanhill, Glasgow, ScotlandKitakagaya, Osaka, JapanChapinero Alto, Bogota, ColombiaKoenji, Tokyo, JapanDowntown, St. Catharines, CanadaEsquilino, Rome, ItalyRussafa, Valencia, SpainTan Din, Ho Chi Minh City, VietnamSao Bento, Lisbon, PortugalTalat Noi, Bangkok, ThailandSlakthusomr\u00e5det, Stockholm, SwedenHumayunpur, Delhi, IndiaLaranjeiras, Rio de Janeiro, BrazilWest Town, Chicago, U.S.R\u00e1k\u00f3czi t\u00e9r, Budapest, HungaryJalan Besar, SingaporeCrooswijk, Rotterdam, NetherlandsChacagiales, Buenos Aires, ArgentinaBandra West, Mumbai, IndiaCathedral Quarter, Belfast, IrelandRepublica, Sao Paulo, BrazilChangning, Shanghai, ChinaOost, Amsterdam, NetherlandsFinancial District, New York, U.S.New Farm, Brisbane, AustraliaQuarter d\u2019Aligre, Paris, FranceKalk Bay, Cape Town, South AfricaNorth Hobart, Hobart, AustraliaNewington Green, London, EnglandYulin, Chengdu, ChinaMount Pleasant, Vancouver, CanadaCentro Historico, Lima, PeruBoavista, Porto, PortugalStarstreet Precinct, Hong KongSouth Melbourne, Melbourne, AustraliaDistillery District, Lexington, U.S. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sorry, Toronto. The seat at the cool kids\u2019 table was given to another city in Ontario further west…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":900463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[712,49,48,75],"class_list":["post-900462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-apple-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=900462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/900463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}