diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index b0e94a782e9..0db8b3c28dc 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -911,6 +911,7 @@ dependencies = [
  "serde_json 1.0.38 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)",
  "serde_yaml 0.7.5 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)",
  "test-store 0.1.0",
+ "tokio-threadpool 0.1.14 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)",
  "uuid 0.7.2 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)",
  "walkdir 2.2.7 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)",
 ]
diff --git a/core/Cargo.toml b/core/Cargo.toml
index 910eca1447f..ddcc77a1576 100644
--- a/core/Cargo.toml
+++ b/core/Cargo.toml
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ serde = "1.0"
 serde_json = "1.0"
 serde_yaml = "0.7"
 uuid = { version = "0.7.2", features = ["v4"] }
+tokio-threadpool = "0.1.14"
 
 [dev-dependencies]
 # We're using the latest ipfs-api for the HTTPS support that was merged in
diff --git a/core/src/subgraph/instance_manager.rs b/core/src/subgraph/instance_manager.rs
index 3343a8661a3..0480516c9e5 100644
--- a/core/src/subgraph/instance_manager.rs
+++ b/core/src/subgraph/instance_manager.rs
@@ -255,7 +255,17 @@ impl SubgraphInstanceManager {
         // creates dynamic data sources. This allows us to recreate the
         // block stream and include events for the new data sources going
         // forward; this is easier than updating the existing block stream.
-        tokio::spawn(loop_fn(ctx, move |ctx| run_subgraph(ctx)));
+        let mut subgraph_task = loop_fn(ctx, |ctx| run_subgraph(ctx));
+
+        // This task has many calls to the store, so mark it as `blocking`.
+        tokio::spawn(future::poll_fn(move || {
+            match tokio_threadpool::blocking(|| subgraph_task.poll()) {
+                Ok(Async::NotReady) | Ok(Async::Ready(Ok(Async::NotReady))) => Ok(Async::NotReady),
+                Ok(Async::Ready(Ok(Async::Ready(())))) => Ok(Async::Ready(())),
+                Ok(Async::Ready(Err(()))) => Err(()),
+                Err(_) => panic!("not inside a tokio thread pool"),
+            }
+        }));
 
         Ok(())
     }