Last summer I really wanted to go to a tiki bar, one of those Polynesian-themed places that serves drinks in coconuts. I finally found one, but someone warned me that they charged $10 a drink. Even if I saved up so I could go out drinking at the tiki bar, I wouldn’t want to drink with people who pay $10 for their drinks.
There are lots of Toronto bars I like, but they all pretty much look the same. There’s usually a lot of wood in ‘em. Sometimes there are things on the wall, like old paintings or records, or they serve weird bar food like pickled eggs, but that’s about it. I want more than that. I want bars that are like Chuck E. Cheese but with drinks. (The best adult fun revisits the fun you had as a kid, I think. It’s like sneaking your ten-year-old self a beer.)
Also, I want these bars to be open to people who would otherwise go to wood-and-pickled egg bars, not like the tiki place or that bowling alley on John Street that charges $64.50 an hour. It’s more about the clientele than the pricing, though, if I’m being honest. The tiki bar, it turns out, charges $7 for drinks, but I don’t know about those patrons. Maybe this sounds snobby, but I think it’s reasonable to want to go to bars where people you know and like might go, and where you might actually sleep with one of the other patrons. Toronto bars are pretty segregated along 416/905 lines (which is easy shorthand but not entirely accurate, because I think lots of 905ers own condos downtown).
People go to wood-and-pickled-egg bars for the social stuff, not the visuals. But what if we could have both? Other cities have bars like these, but not us. New York has Crocodile Lounge, where you get free pizza with your drink. Montreal has that bar where the tables are video games. These are small additions, but they make all the difference when all you know is wood and pickled eggs.
Why don’t people make more interesting bars? There are a million bars you could make. We’ll prove it. Here are a bunch.
The Cute Dog Bar
Here’s something you and I probably have in common: we love looking at adorable dogs. I don’t know if you have a dog, but I don’t have one, partly because if I got one I’d have to worry about things like going out to the bar with it. Well, not if this bar existed. Patrons would be encouraged to bring their dogs. There’d be a dog fun zone for the dogs to play in, in view of all the patrons. I know what you’re thinking: What if the dogs started to fight? I don’t know what you’d do then. I only ever look at dogs.
The Bar that’s Also a Rainforest
You know how in the Science Centre they have that fake rainforest? I love that. Problem is, there’s not much to do in there besides cross the dinky little bridge they have set up (who am I kidding, that bridge is freaky). If you made a bar into a fake rainforest, you could maybe have a waterfall of beer. Any beer at all. You wouldn’t have to worry about carrying other kinds of beer because tonight we’re roughing it.
The Haunted Bar
Haunted houses are great, but, again, you can’t hang out in a haunted house. You could I guess, but what if one of the guys dressed up as a murderer was actually a murderer with the perfect disguise? Well, at this bar there’d be security to screen for murderers. There’d also be theme nights. One night would be all skeletons and other forms of dead people. Another night would be witches and you could get a hot toddy from a cauldron. Another night would be bogeymen. Just kidding. Bogeymen are way too scary.
Gaslight Bar
Gaslighting is when you make someone think they’re bonkers by pretending the world isn’t what it is. This bar could do all sorts of things to make you think that. For instance, the actual bar could move every hour or so, so you’d come back in from having a smoke and say, Wait, wasn’t the bar over there? The bartenders could do things like turn up the heat slowly over the course of the night, or play every other song backward over the PA.
Bar with Stretchy Spandex Walls
This bar would have several adjacent rooms, and the walls of each room would be made of stretchy spandex material. So you could stick your face or hands into the wall, and they would protrude into the next room like in The Frighteners .
Moving Walkway Bar
One thing that teenagers used to do in Toronto was hang out on the moving walkway at Spadina station because they didn’t have anywhere else to go. It wasn’t that fun, but here’s a chance to right that wrong. Instead of standing around talking like a dingbat, you could stand around talking like you were going somewhere.
Cult Bar
This bar seems like any normal bar at first, except that when anyone tries to leave, the lights will go on and everyone will turn and stare at them. Every two hours or so, a man in a robe will come out and lead the room in a chant. Then he will disappear. Every three hours or so, someone charismatic will start yelling at patrons for things that are not their fault. In the bathroom, a PA will blare messages that don’t make any sense. By the end of the night, everyone will be in the cult together. It would be a great way to unify the city.
The Bar with a Tailor in it
Say you’re having too much fun and you rip your dress. At an ordinary bar, you would have to suck it up. Not at this bar. You could just mosey into the tailor’s den, and he or she would fix you right up. Can you imagine if you could run errands at the bar? That would be amazing, so let’s expand this idea. This bar would have a tailor plus a mini-grocery store and a post office and a more elaborate ATM than most bars have.
Giant Bar
This would be just like a normal bar, except everything would be super tiny, from the chairs to the tables to the actual bar. There’d be nowhere to sit, but you’d feel pretty great about yourself all night.
Slime Bar
Slime was a big thing in the ‘80s and ‘90s. On TV shows like You Can’t Do That on Television, kids got slime poured all over their heads. This bar would have a phonebooth-sized stall where you could get doused with slime. Everyone else in the bar would get to laugh at you, and, for your troubles, you would get a free drink.
Mini Golf Bar
This is so obvious I don’t even think I need to explain it.
Gymnasium Bar
Did you know that you can rent a gymnasium, like in a school? I don’t think you can drink in it, though, so they should make a bar for that. Obviously, a bar could not have a climbing apparatus. That’s just silly. But it could have other things, like those big parachutes people stand around and undulate. Or those wheelie things that are just plastic squares with wheels at the bottom. Remember those? You sat on them and pushed yourself along with your legs. Often, you got your skin stuck under a wheel and it pinched. The pain would be good for sobering you up.
Hootie-Themed Bar
This bar would be devoted to Hootie, but just Hootie — not the Blowfish. The building would be shaped like Hootie’s head, and you would enter through his mouth. One wall would just be a giant mural of Hootie’s face. The glasses would all be little figurines of Hootie, and the drink names would all have the word “Hootie” in them, like “What a Hootie,” or “Hootie-nanny.”
Bar with a Giant Tank that Contains a Shark
You know what would make this bar even better? If it were otherwise a wood-and-pickled-eggs bar. Everything about it would be normal except that one wall would be a giant fish tank with a shark in it. Feeding time would be happy hour, except reversed, as in patrons would have to pay extra for their drinks. How else are you going to pay for a shark?
Bar with an Improv Instructor Who Visits Tables that Seem Boring
This would be a normal bar, except that an improv instructor, preferably the British guy from the original Who’s Line Is it Anyway, would walk around to tables where the conversation seems to be dwindling and lead a series of improv games.
Bar Where Every So Often a Giant Head Appears
Again, a normal bar, except every so often a giant head would appear in the middle of the bar and yell things that don’t make any sense. This is partly inspired by the Scrambler on Centre Island.
Truth or Dare Karaoke Bar
You go up onstage and people either force you to tell the truth about something saucy, or dare you to do something. This could get really cruel really fast and the whole night could dissolve into tears and screaming and chair-breaking. I wouldn’t mind that every now and again.
Make-Your-Own Pizza Bar
More bars should have pizza, period, but that’s a boring proposition on its own. So this one is a make-your-own pizza bar, and someone else will operate the oven for you because you’re drunk.
Bar with a Gong in It
More bars should also have gongs in them, especially bars where local bands get up and play, even though the night was never advertised as a band night.
Bar that Lets You Make Fun of People
The centre of every table would have a digital pad, on which you could write cruel and funny things about other patrons who are bothering you. A screen at one end of the bar would present an ongoing slideshow of the things people are writing. This would kind of like an anonymous roasting and everyone would come away friends.
Seinfeld Bar
A bar decorated like Jerry’s apartment that plays many varieties of slap bass all night long.
