Café Neon

For Café Neon owner Niki Tsourounakis, restaurants and cooking have always been a huge part of her life. Growing up in the Eastern Ontario town of Hawkesbury, Niki can barely remember a time when she wasn’t playing, helping out, and eventually serving in one of her parents’ restaurants. It was only a natural progression that she’d eventually open up a place of her own.

“I was pretty much born into a restaurant,” she says, laughing. “They’re in my blood.” So it wasn’t much of a surprise to anyone when Niki returned full-time to the restaurant industry, after taking a few years off to study forensic psychology. “I realized I really missed talking to people, serving people; it made me really happy," she says. Taking the plunge in 2011, Niki opened up Café Neon in a then-quiet Junction Triangle, and hasn’t looked back since.