Some Toronto Spots

Here is the beginning of my Toronto bar project.

Please feel more than free to comment with any suggestions/corrections

“A working hotel and bar for 80 years, The Cameron began this most recent incarnation in 1981 when it morphed from a flophouse into a full-fledged arts community.” (www.thecameron.com). Just ever so slightly too far west to be considered a part of the trendy Queen St. strip that includes the Rivoli, the Horseshoe Tavern, and the CHUM City buildings, and just south of the Alexandra Park housing co-operative, it represents many elements of an urban arts community that could otherwise be seen to be incompatible.

Building on the success of The Cameron House, many more of this genre of bar would seem to be cropping up of late along Queen St. West. Of Parkdale’s relatively new Mitzi’s Sister restaurant, Toronto Life says, ‘The crowd here is much less Rosedale trust-fund baby than Parkdale loftier who sees glamour on the grittier side of Queen West.’ (see www.toronto.com) In its own website, the Drake Hotel at Queen and Beaconsfield, just west of Dovercourt, the same area that houses the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, is described as ‘Housing beautiful contradictions, where highs meet lows and the healthful coexist with the decadent, the Drake embodies urban wildness...By the 80’s, The Drake had fallen upon hard times - at times a punk bar, all night rave den and come-by-chance flophouse. The current owner purchased the property in late 2001 and undertook the extensive renovations that give the hotel its current form - a celebration of its fabulous history.’ (www.thedrakehotel.ca).