Starbucks may have fled the ’hood, but the proprietors of a Cabbagetown store selling ethical jewelry are staking a permanent claim up the road from their current Parliament Street location.

“We’re optimistic that the neighbourhood is only going to get better and it’s going to grow,” says Kristin Inglese, Fair Trade Jewellery Co.’s artistic director and brand manager.

“We really want people to seek us out, come to Cabbagetown, get coffee here, go to the farm, and be impressed by our beautiful new retail space and not be afraid to hang out here, and have other retailers not be afraid to want to rent here.”

During Fair Trade’s decade at 523 Parliament St., just north of Carlton Street, numerous retailers and restaurateurs have come and gone, including Starbucks, which closed in April after 10 years. (A spokesman for the coffee retailer will only say it is a “normal part of doing business” to open, close and relocate stores. The building is now Toronto Liberal MP and Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s campaign office.)

In some ways, Cabbagetown’s “main street” is no different than many retail strips across the city pocked with empty storefronts in an era of big-box stores and the rise in online shopping.

Filled with imposing, multimillion-dollar Victorian homes, mature trees, parks, cemeteries and the aforementioned Riverdale Farm, this downtown “village within a big city” might seem well positioned to not only survive the so-called retail apocalypse, but thrive.

Yet even Cabbagetowners who are fiercely loyal — and passionate — about their neighbourhood, feel something’s missing — a modern, dynamic streetscape, a place where locals and outsiders would flock to sit on outdoor patios, listen to live music, buy trendy clothing or eat in acclaimed restaurants.

(Many also point out it’s not that there aren’t great places, with shout-outs to Spruce, Epicure, Daniel et Daniel, The Irv, House of Parliament, Stout, F’Amelia, Kendall & Co., Jet Fuel, Labour of Love and St. James Town Steak and Chops. Even the long-standing Home Hardware, whose owner, Bill Renieris, is chair of the Cabbagetown Business Improvement Area, has its share of admirers.)

So what’s going on?

Why, wonder some, hasn’t a marquee brand name, such as The Drake, planted its flag in an area that flies its own — featuring a green cabbage on a white background?

“It must be one of the most fickle streets for a business to take hold and prosper on in the city,” 40-year Cabbagetown resident Joe Lepiano wrote in an email to the Star. “If I could figure out the formula for success on Parliament I’d be wealthy, but I can’t so I’m not.”

Some believe the area’s multiple residential Heritage Conservation Designations (HCDs) are bad for business because they prevent higher density development and keep the population relatively stagnant — and indoors. (On June 20, the Toronto Preservation Board endorsed proceeding with an HCD plan for Cabbagetown Southwest. A “nomination” to include Parliament within the designation is on hold for now.)

If you have a nice, big beautiful home, that means you’re going to want to spend a lot of time there — compared to living in a condo and apartment where you’re going out and exploring the world, is how this thinking goes.

There are other opinions on why Parliament isn’t a more prosperous place to do business, including the steep cost of commercial rent, which isn’t unique to the area.

The sidewalks are too narrow. Expansion and beautification efforts are hampered by overhead wires on wooden utility poles. Many buildings on Parliament need repairs and lack a large footprint. Some commercial enterprises that fall under an HCD are discentivized from making facade improvements to their storefronts because of the extra level of red tape — and costs.

Then there are the Cabbagetowners themselves. “It’s a great community, not a great financial engine,” says one of them, businessman Kendall Williams.

He and husband Kevin Kung, who co-own Kendall & Co. Interior Design and Decor, can’t understand why locals leave to patronize retailers in midtown Toronto when their showroom and design studio offers similar — or better — products and services, not to mention one of the most creative and colourful storefronts on Parliament.

Ex-hippie and neighbourhood rabble-rouser Randy Brown, who has called Cabbagetown home for 37 years and runs the annual art and crafts sale, agrees locals shoulder some blame for Parliament’s enduring shabbiness by not shopping locally, though he insists he does, including buying groceries at No Frills on Parliament.

“I don’t like it, but it’s too easy to go there,” he said recently, sitting in the backyard oasis of his heritage home on a sunny afternoon, briefly interrupted by some passing, salty-tongued sidewalk strollers on the other side of the fence.

“But I almost never run into a neighbour there, almost never. Most of them avoid it,” due to some of the “rough characters” and “depressing sights.”

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Jaimy Warner’s creative online content agency, The Social Smiths, is coming up to its first anniversary on Parliament. She is a recent addition to the Cabbagetown BIA board.

Warner believes the area needs to broaden its appeal to people living outside Cabbagetown, the young professionals with no kids and “tremendous disposable income,” whose population has exploded in nearby Regent Park, where she lives. When they want nightlife, they head to the Distillery District or Queen and King Street West — not Cabbagetown.

She’s bullish on the recently opened Super Bargain bar on Parliament, which she says serves amazing cocktails in a warm and inviting environment, “hipster in a good way.”

The biggest challenge confronting Parliament, she says, “is this main street feels very dated” and “bougie” to a lot of people. She says sitting inside her funky Parliament Street space, filled with handmade furniture built from recycled material, hanging art and a wall decorated with a mural painting. The building previously housed a flower studio, an antique shop and café.

Parliament Street is also not “bougie” enough for residents, who will “go shop over in Yorkville.”

Warner has little patience for anyone whinging that Parliament’s street life is too gritty, she says.

“I don’t have a problem seeing homeless people on the street,” she says, adding “they’re not going away.”

In fact, some Toronto Community Housing residents have gone away. Former denizens of the row of garishly painted rooming houses, south of the LCBO on Parliament Street, have been relocated while badly needed repair work is undertaken.

Back down on Carlton Street, just east of where it abruptly stops and intersects with Parliament, there are other renovations underway.

Jacqueline Nicosia, co-owner of the popular Ardo Italian restaurant, at Sherbourne and King streets, is jazzed about opening a second dining establishment, called Dova Restaurant, in the spot recently vacated by pizzeria Hey Lucy.

She is well aware of Cabbagetown’s reputation — one long-term resident says the area “is not for the faint of heart” — but dismisses any concern.

“We think there’s a great community there. Every area of Toronto has the positive and negative sides to it, but we see more of a positive side in Cabbagetown,” she told the Star.