Normally Calii Love specializes in healthy Hawaiian-inspired food, serving up poke bowls of salmon, pineapple, and kimchee on beds of black rice.

But on Monday transit advocacy was also on the menu at the King St. West restaurant, when about 20 supporters of the contentious King streetcar pilot project congregated there to show their love for local businesses.

The event was organized by Kevin Vuong, an instructor at the University of Toronto’s faculty of medicine who said he wanted to find a way to attract customers to King restaurants after some owners complained the yearlong pilot is taking a big bite out of their profits.

“I think we need more creative ideas and bold ideas like the pilot,” Vuong said, who noted since the city installed the project in November it has improved streetcar service.

“This is my way of showing my support in a way that I think everyone can get behind, which is with our bellies!”

Vuong said he got the idea to support local restaurants earlier this month after Al Carbone, the owner of Kit Kat Italian Bar & Grill on King, put up ice sculptures of middle fingers along the street to protest the streetcar project.

One of the sculptures went up in front of burrito restaurant Z-Teca, whose owners took heat on social media before later clarifying they hadn’t sanctioned the frosty finger.

In response Vuong hastily put together a lunch at Z-Teca last Monday, but decided to launch a more organized event this week. He christened the event the “King Eats Pilot.”

He plans to hold another “lunch party” at a different restaurant on Wednesday, and said he’s even had requests to organize dinner or drinks events on King in the evenings.

The city launched the pilot project in order to free up streetcar movement on King, which is the TTC’s busiest surface route and carries more than 72,000 riders a day.

The pilot restricts car movement on King between Bathurst and Jarvis Sts. by forcing drivers to turn right off of the street at most major intersections. Left turns on King are also prohibited, and the city removed 180 on-street parking spots.

Initial data suggests the pilot, which is scheduled to last until December, has improved transit service. Average streetcar travel times in the pilot area have been reduced by as much as 13 per cent, and the reliability of service has also increased.

However, some business owners on King’s restaurant row east of Spadina Ave. have complained that the pilot has turned the area into a “ghost town.”

Carbone is waging a sustained campaign against the project, and has called on the city to cancel it. His medium of choice has so far been the ice sculptures — last week he replaced the middle finger outside his restaurant with a pair of thumbs’ up figures, followed this week by a Donald Trump-inspired “Make King St. Great Again!”

The city has responded to restaurateurs’ complaints by launching a slew of measures to attract customers to King, including offering up to two hours of free parking in the area.

Calii Love owner Dan Gunam is taking a less combative approach than Carbone, but while he welcomed Vuong’s party Monday and is broadly supportive of the pilot, he also has concerns.

In an interview Gunam said that since the project began orders placed through Uber Eats, which make up about a third of his business in winter, have dropped significantly.

He said that as a result of the new traffic restrictions, Uber began projecting longer delivery times and attaching surcharges to orders from the area. He estimates he lost about 10 per cent of his revenue.

Uber Canada spokesperson Susie Heath said the company has “been undertaking efforts to ensure smooth Uber Eats deliveries” on King, including incorporating the pilot’s traffic rules into its app and educating customers and drivers about the changes.

She said the experience Gunam described “is not part of a broader trend that we have seen.”

Gunam has since relocated the pickup area for Uber Eats drivers to the rear of his restaurant, which allows them to avoid King St.

He argued it would have been easier on businesses if the city had launched it in spring when foot traffic on King is heavy. He also suggested the pilot’s traffic restrictions could be lifted outside of morning and afternoon rush hour, a suggestion Carbone has also made.

But Gunam said it’s ultimately up to business owners to adapt.

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“You don’t need to be negative … People need to figure out how to work together to make it better,” he said.

“If I sit here, then I’m going to fail.”

Correction – January 31, 2018: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said Calii Love restaurant owner Dan Gunam suggested the lifting of traffic restrictions on King St. during morning and evening rush hour as a possible solution to help local businesses that have been adversely affected by the pilot project. In fact, Gunam’s suggestion was to lift the traffic restrictions outside of rush hour.

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