I just came across an article about Canadian restaurant chains that no longer exist. TBH, I only recognized a few out of the 10, I think because some must have been regional. The names may ignite some nostalgia in other readers. But Mother’s Pizza certainly rang a bell of familiarity, as do the last three, although I mostly remember Lick’s as a purveyor of frozen hamburger patties, not as a restaurant.
I thought Captain John’s was just a single location in Toronto harbour, but apparently they had multiple other locations using converted former cruise ships.
When “The Keg’n’Cleaver” became “The Keg”, it was more than just a name change. The original was an informal steakhouse with a great salad bar and reasonable prices. The transformed one we have today is more upscale and expensive, and informal features like a salad bar buffet have disappeared. I still think it’s a good restaurant with fair prices, but it’s certainly very different from what it once was.
Here’s the list. And BTW, the article’s description of Mother’s Pizza contained a fine example of humourously bad grammatical construction: “Kids especially loved watching the pizza makers toss dough through the kitchen window”.
Mother’s Pizza (closed 1989)
Blue Cactus Tacos & Tequila Bar (2025)
White Spot Drive-In (most locations closed in early '80s)
Café Henry Burger (closed 2006)
Murray’s Restaurants (most locations closed by late '80s)
Peter’s Drive-In (closed in early '90s except for one location in Calgary)
Frank Vetere’s (locations gradually closed through mid-80s)
Oh gosh, what memories those bring back. Mother’s was a favourite of my girlfriend in the 1980s, and I probably still have a couple of Frank Vetere’s “Tiffany-style” glasses around somewhere.
Never went to Lick’s. I preferred Toby’s for burgers. (Another defunct chain, though I think one location is still hanging on.)
Murray’s was nice family dining. Rather like Honeydew or Fran’s. Both Murray’s and Honeydew are gone, and Fran’s is somehow still there, though it’s down to two locations. Sadly, my two favourite locations of Fran’s (Yonge and Eglinton and Yonge and St. Clair) now seem to be gone. Jeez, Fran’s all-night diner was a godsend after a night of boozing at the university pub, when I was an undergrad.
And the Keg. I do remember the Keg 'n Cleaver, and I remember how it was nice and informal. It was on par with Swiss Chalet and Frank Vetere’s. Then it changed its name, went upscale, and now is a tiny bit lower than Hy’s (which, for our American friends, is the Canadian equivalent of Smith and Wollensky’s and Del Frisco’s Double Eagle). Last time I went to The Keg, I felt compelled to wear a jacket and tie, which I never did back in the 1980s.
Great memories! Thanks for bringing them back (and making me hungry).
The Keg is the only one I recognised on that list.
Well, that and Café Henri Berger, but that wasn’t a chain, just a single restaurant in Gatineau. Very nice. I went there to celebrate after à court case. Went under as a result of the federal expense claims scandal.
That French spelling makes a lot more sense than what was in the article, but according to Wikipedia Café Henry Burger is actually correct. Perhaps it was also known by a French-ified version of the name. I don’t know, that’s one of the ones I had not heard of. According to the wiki, it was opened in 1922, closed after the 1929 stock market crash, then re-opened some years later.
Licks was a big one for me, as was posted up thread Toby’s. These were hangout restaurants of my high school years. We ate at both iterations of Captain John’s in Toronto, I have no memory of other locations.
Obie’s is a lost chain of my childhood. I was probably at the Yorkdale location with my grandmother on a weekly basis until 1977 or so.
Heh. Back in 1998/1999 or so, I was on a business trip in Fort Worth, Texas. My contact, with whom I ate most dinners (hey, he was paying) wanted to try a new place that had just opened up. The barnboard walls and a picture of Billy Miner made me suspect it was a Keg, though it wasn’t called that. Honestly, I cannot recall its name, though its name was definitely not “The Keg.” But the menu told me that it was a Keg, right down to the Billy Miner pie.
I see that the Keg is now using that name in Texas, and that that particular Fort Worth location no longer exists. But while my host was gushing about how great this new steakhouse was, I was quietly smiling. I was dining at an old friend that I had been to many times before.
Me and my friends were talking about “Bonanza”. It was a chain in (at least) BC, that sold steaks and had a large salad bar. I think it disappeared in the early 90’s.
There was. Steaks, burgers, some forms of chicken, an all-you-can-eat salad bar, and fully licensed. It was a favourite of our family’s when I was in my early teens. I liked it.
Are there still Steak 'n Burgers? They were about the same.
ETA: O’Toole’s Roadhouse. They may have been a southern Ontario thing, but they were a chain, and you could find them all over. A basic burger-and-wings-and-beer place, nothing special, but a favourite of a lot of beer-league softball teams.
Both Ponderosa and Bonanza were U.S. chains, which expanded into Canada for a time. Both were founded in the 1960s, and both were, obviously, named after the popular TV western, Bonanza, which was set on the Ponderosa ranch. Dan Blocker, one of the stars of Bonanza, was a founder of the Bonanza chain.
By the late '80s, both chains were owned by the same company. Most of their U.S. restaurants have closed over the last 20 years, but there are still a relative handful open, under both names.
If we can count those, then I’ll add Chi-Chi’s. It was the first time many of us Canadians had the chance to try Mexican food, and while it may have been scoffed at by American Tex-Mex purists, we flocked there. I remember hour-long lineups.
I ran across this page, which I found interesting:
I remember many of them, though I may not have eaten there. In many cases, they are not chains, and what chains there are tend to be are Toronto-specific in all but a few cases.
Still, I’m sure any Torontonians of a certain age would remember Shopsy’s. From humble beginnings as a Jewish deli on Spadina Avenue, it grew into a chain of locations around the GTA, and was so successful that its foods (pastrami, cole slaw, etc.) were packaged and sold at supermarkets. It’s gone now, and so is its tasty cole slaw that I could get at the supermarket.
Mr. Greenjeans. Started on Adelaide Street at around Jarvis, and grew to a few locations, including a prominent one in the Eaton Centre. Pretty standard 80s and 90s offerings in a place that had leafy green plants, but notorious for its desserts. A small hot fudge sundae was a meal in itself, it was that big (as I recall, the small sundaes were served in quart-sized Mason jars). Gone as well.
And one that is not in the link: the Nag’s Head. Only maybe three or four locations in the GTA, but all prime locations (e.g. King and Yonge, the Eaton Centre). Much like O’Toole’s Roadhouse, but they had entertainment on Fridays and Saturdays. Which is what led our group to be asked to leave one night when Sean started dancing on the tables. Anyway, they’re gone now. I haven’t seen Sean in years, but I guess he’s found other tables to dance on.
My university used to have a student pub on campus called The Keg, but they got sued over the name, and were renamed The Brass Taps. But of course, for decades afterward, students refused to use the new “official” name. Even the student newspapers would say in the September issue, for new students, “Don’t say ‘Brass Taps’, say ‘Keg’”.
Brass Taps did eventually win out, some time after I graduated, alas.
You used to have to line up, cafeteria style, to get your food. This was the place where, as a child, first learned that not all “grown-ups” were smart. I had my tray with food and drink on it, and was going to walk to my table. One of the staff said they’d carry it for me, because I would “spill my drink” if I did it myself.
As I watched them spill my drink all over everything as they put the tray on the table, I remember thinking, “I wouldn’t have done that…” I had to sit there and watch the rest of my family eat while they replaced my dinner for me.
You may remember Stoodleigh’s in Toronto. Although a chain, their most famous location was at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto. It was a cafeteria-style restaurant, and while you selected your meal going down the path, you’d always check out with the cashier.
And there was always a smiling young lady there just behind the cashier, asking, “Can I carry your tray, sir?” I guess you could refuse, but on the occasions that our family ate there, my Dad never did. Dad, Mom, Sis, and Me, four trays, four young ladies, four tips, and Dad just took it in stride. That was Stoodleigh’s.
I was going to add Mr. Mike’s Steakhouse, but apparently they’re still around, just not much of a presence in metro Vancouver anymore. They seem to be in smaller cities and towns.
The Artistocratic restaurant chain in Vancouver was down to a single outlet in 1997, when the last one closed. The neon sign featuring “Risty” is still there, now in an Indigo bookstore.
Edited to add, the one in the bookstore may not be the original neon sign.
