Bruno Republic
Active Member
It was a Toby's location for many years.
|
|
|
Church-Wellesley Village
- Thread starter dt_toronto_geek
- Start date
It was a Toby's location for many years.
Bruno Republic
Active Member
That was where the Pizza Pizza was until they moved to larger space on the corner.
threnody
Active Member
I must have missed the news that Pizza Iolo is taking over the space occupied by Bigliardi's.
This will be the fourth pizza joint in the village. Don't we have enough already? At the rate things are going in 15 years Church Street will be nothing but pizza places, shawarma places, banks and coffee shops.
This will be the fourth pizza joint in the village. Don't we have enough already? At the rate things are going in 15 years Church Street will be nothing but pizza places, shawarma places, banks and coffee shops.
Jonny5
Senior Member
I hear lots of gossip about rents and landlords on the street.. no idea what is true.
I've heard repeatedly that the rents on Church are the highest in the city, outside of Yorkville and the Eaton Centre. Can anyone confirm?
to_l
Active Member
Can anyone come or just regulars?
Dan416
Senior Member
Toby's? I don't think so because the name doesn't sound familiar at all. It was something else. When I hear it I'll remember it.
jaborandi
Active Member
Definitely Toby's. I was a bit distressed when it closed.
threnody
Active Member
I think I remember hearing something along those lines when This Ain't the Rosedale Library moved to Kensington, but my Google-fu seems to be failing me.
Dan416
Senior Member
I've never even heard of Toby's though. Maybe it was something else in-between that and when it became Zelda's? It only became Zelda's like what, 5 years ago?
jaborandi
Active Member
Quite possibly. I don't recall it being anything else but I could be wrong. Toby's was a local chain. There was one at Yonge & Bloor before the block got torn down for the ill-fated 1 Bloor East. They served a really decent hamburger.
dt_toronto_geek
Superstar
Toby's Good Eats was at former Zelda's since at least '84 when a group of us helped move a friend into 55 Maitland, we ate there afterward. Toby's had other downtown, midtown, suburban & even out of town locations. I recall a short-lived location in the Eaton Centre and another on Bloor W. almost across from the University Theatre (now Pottery Barn). In the 80's & 90's it was very popular chain, their hamburgers rivaled Licks but it was their fries with this killer cheese sauce that kept me coming back
. Some locations still survive including their Jackson Square location in Hamilton that has to have been there for going on 25 years now.
Dan416
Senior Member
I tried looking through old diaries to see if I could find the name of what it was, but saw no mentions of it. There were mentions of The Red Spot, Tango's, Second Cup, Woody's/Sailor, Buddies. Maybe I didn't go there before it became Zelda's? Now I'm starting to doubt my own memory lol. But the one thing I AM sure of is that I never knew it as Toby's. That must have been before my time.
dt_toronto_geek
Superstar
If I recall, after Toby's went out of the Church Street location it sat empty for some time. Perhaps a few months, maybe a half year but it had a good 10 or 15 year run at that spot. Towards the end of it's success the Toby's Good Eats chain went downhill pretty fast. Their locations were not very clean (the staff had names for the mice at the Y+B location - no joke), the quality of the food declined and service was generally pretty rotten. It was a good burger joint in it's heyday but if you missed it don't feel bad. In the end, it was just another artery clogging fast food memory.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
When we were art students in about 1974/75, and it had just opened, my boyfriend Derek and I used to eat at the first Toby's, located on the south side of Bloor roughly opposite where Harry Rosen is now. The humble burger had to be liberated from its debased "greasy spoon" status eventually, and updated as something new ... and Toby's was an early part of that trend. The Peter Pan on Queen and Just Desserts were part of the same era of trendy niche eateries. There used to be a Toby's at Broadview and Danforth in the mid-80s when it made a half-hearted comeback as a chain.
Bruno Republic
Active Member
There used to be several Toby's locations. I seem to recall there being one in the Eaton Centre years ago. As mentioned above, there was still one left near Yonge and Bloor until the block was demolished.
It was definitely Toby's that was on Church just south of Wellesley, from at least the mid-80s until well into the 90s, or possibly much later. I don't recall anything between Toby's and Zelda's.
I went to Toby's many, many times in the early 90s, but eventually stopped because (1) the food really wasn't that good IMHO and (2) I stopped going out to nightclubs, and Toby's was the pre- (or sometimes post-) club destination.