One of Toronto's oldest bars is closing down after over 80 years
A Toronto bar that’s been an institution in the city for over 80 years is officially calling it quits this fall.
Restaurant and bar closures are, unfortunately, a way of life in any big city. For our part, Toronto’s seen no small number of heartbreaking closures over the past three months alone.
Still, there are some local haunts that, even as progress scorches the history around them, hold strong. These are the types of places that feel like they’ll always be around because, to many, it seems like they always have.
There are a few spots in the city — or, rather, a few remaining — that exemplify this more than Dundas East’s historic Imperial Pub.
The pub, which sits like a fish out of water just east of Sankofa Square, has been around since 1944, marking its 80th anniversary just last year, and has operated as a family-run business for its entire time.
Despite its somewhat seedy environs, Imperial has become a local favourite among students at nearby TMU and the regulars who’ve kept their bar tabs open for decades on end.
Now, after a history that started back when men and women weren’t legally allowed to drink together and has lasted through generations of unprecedented development and change, the Imperial Pub is preparing to close the bar completely.
“With great sadness, we must inform you that we will be closing the pub on Nov. 15, 2025,” a message on Imperial Pub’s website reads.
“It has been an honour and a delight to serve you!”
It’s not a lack of business or rising costs that’s forcing the bar’s doors to close, but rather, in typical Toronto fashion, good, old-fashioned development.
Back in 2021, a proposal was brought to City Council for a development that would see the entire north-east block of the Dundas East and Victoria Street Lane, which includes, most prominently, Imperial Pub, demolished and a multi-storey, mixed-use development built over it.
The proposal has since been approved, and, as demolition grows increasingly imminent, the Imperial Pub has been left with no choice but to call it quits, once and for all.
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Luckily, they’re staying operational for as much of the semester as possible, so that the TMU and UofT students who call it a home-away-from-home can get a few more hops-fuelled study sessions in, and anyone else who wants to honour a true Toronto landmark one last time can do so, too.
Hey, at least if you swing by for one last pint, men and women will be able to do so together this time around.
Imperial Pub
Address: 54 Dundas St. E.
Phone: 416-977-4667
Last day: Nov. 15
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