The Toad In The Hole

Here's a gem from The Toad In The Hole - back in the day, a local artist would frequent the pub and in exchange for a pint or two would not only provide a cartoon called Warton, but would eventually also design the new menu when the time came along.

Toby was the best selling draught beer at the Toad, though Molson later introduced Rickards Red to eventually replace it ....

Charrington Toby Charrington Toby a English Pale Ale beer by Molson Breweries (MolsonCoors), a brewery in Montreal, Quebec

Two of the first "Joe Era" daytime employees serving lunch were Chris (leadsinger) and Greg (congas) from the ska band King Apparatus - the shot was taken in the late 80s at a club in London called Tangerine.

One of the successful revenue streams for The Toad was its line of shirts... featured here in Amsterdam - when Graeme Boyce and John Stewart (and g/f Debbie Shillington) were in Europe visiting distributors for Raw Energy in the early 90s.

Showcasing one of the original servers' shirts, Toad Manager Graeme Boyce, relaxing on the couch pre-shift with his new son Eric (born in June '89).

SkyDome opened in 1989, and shortly thereafter its principal tenant, the Blue Jays (originally owned by Labatt's), quickly ascended to the top of their division and packed the place. From 1985–1993, they were certainly an American League East powerhouse, winning five division championships in nine seasons, including three consecutive from 1991–93. During that run, the team also became back-to-back World Series champions in '92 and '93. For fans going to the games, parking was a big issue, but The Toad was only a mere 10 minute walk away, or a 15 minute stumble after a few pints of Toby.

SkyDome / Rogers Centre Built In Two And A Half Minutes Timelapse of the world's first retractable roof sport's stadium. It was originally called the SkyDom, now called Rogers Centre. The Rogers Centre hosts the T...

In the late 80s and early 90s, when we were truly enjoying our heyday at The Toad - and the many people who came in (in a truly Cheers the tv show way) whether from Genco's across the road, or the Record Peddler on Brant, or the several offices down the road - Joe used to say you could shoot a cannon down King Street West on a Saturday night and not hit a soul. One of our rather brilliant promotions was to write letters to each travel agent in Upper New York state, including for their clients' benefit a small map of the area that was full of pubs and clubs (and we ventured ourselves on many an occasion winding up to Queen West and stumbling back to assure authenticity) offering The Toad as a starting point, which resulted in many Americans dropping in for a friendly beer before heading off into the night for a drinking tour of the 'hood - long before it was trendy.

What King West looked like in the 1980s The King West of the 1980s was a remarkably different place than today. One of those areas that's undergone an almost complete transformation, prior to a condo boom that kicked off in the late 1990s, for over 100 years the street was dominated by Massey Ferguson, one of the world's...

I, Graeme Boyce, used to work as a part-time bartender at an Empire pub in Toronto called The Guv'nor, during the 80s, while working in the music industry as a News Editor at RPM Weekly, and got to know Stan Anderson (per below), while my sister worked with Joe Atkins, owner of the North American Rotel and B&W speaker distribution rights, who eventually bought The Toad franchise, and then hired me and, as an incentive, offered me the option to run my record label from the office in the basement. An accountant and lunchtime regular at The Toad, Ken Gardner, incorporated my company Raw Energy in October 1989.

Among the post-Pete servers working for us during Joe's phase, from roughly '89 to '91, who helped the pub grow and succeed were several members of the band King Apparatus: Greg Clancy and Chris Murray, and their manager John Stewart, as well as (infamous) Bill who ran Bill's Beer Club each Monday night and Tamara who ran Tamara's Tequila Night every Wednesday, in conjunction with her incredibly popular Wing Night, in addition to the dart boards, the bar-top trivia machine and Galaga video game. The kitchen always prepared an array of great lunchtime specials - and Fresh Fish Fridays each week - not to mention an occasional band on Saturday nights and a Movie Night on Sundays for the locals, long before either the Internet or Cell Phones.

One of the pub's early chefs went on to co-launch the Court Jester in Toronto.

Toronto entrepreneur passes away | Toronto Star Stanley "Mr. Ivan" Anderson, a former hair salon and pub owner, whose reach expanded across the GTA, died at 87 on Aug. 20 after suffering a heart attack in his sleep.