by Matt Williams
Editor’s Note: We’ve had a draft of this article sitting in the dock for months now. Seriously, a first draft went up in frickin’ August. We’re very excited that we can finally hit the “publish” button on this, and even more excited to check out some live music down at the Handsome Daughter. We’re told the doors will be open at 9pm tonight, Friday October 3rd….
Jay Evaristo is tired. Between the 40-50 unpaid hours a week he’s been putting in at 61 Sherbrook St., his actual day job, and trying to keep track of everything that has to happen to open the doors to West Broadway’s newest venue, The Handsome Daughter, some basic elements of survival have fallen by the wayside.
“Finding time to eat and sleep, and see my family,” Evaristo says when asked what the hardest part of getting The Handsome Daughter off the ground has been. “My girlfriend is a very, very patient woman. I’m just trying to balance it all. We all have other shit going on, we all have day jobs, still gotta pay the bills.”
Evaristo and his partner, Kirian Eyford, took over the former Rose n’ Bee Pub (also, in not too long of a time span, The Standard and Hooligan’s) in February. But they didn’t want to just throw a new sign above the garage façade and keep business the same as usual. Instead, they decided to gut the place from the ground up.
“There were a lot of electrical problems, there were just years of neglect,” Evaristo says. “The basement was a goddamned horror show. It was like an episode of Hoarders. In the first month or so we took out about four tonnes of garbage.”
The clean-up crew had a 25-foot-long, eight-foot-high dumpster bin, which Evaristo says was emptied too many times for him to remember correctly. Needless to say, at this point, when we speak in early June, The Handsome Daughter is not ready to open. We’re sitting on old barstools surrounded by empty kegs, drained Pabst and Rock Star cans, numerous worktables and power tools, and a completely torn up floor.
Off to the side a chalkboard stands with a list titled simply “STEVE STUFF,” followed by a number of electrical jobs one of the crewmembers, Steve Diubaldo, is still working on. At the end of the list, written in a different hand, is one last job to remember: “KISS FREYJA.” Freyja is Steve’s girlfriend. Everyone is working around the clock. [Author’s note – Perhaps as a result of the stressors of opening this venue (but likely not, as relationships are infinitely complex and often irrational monsters, and are thus far too complicated to attribute the demise of one to a single incident or event), Steve and Freyja have since split up. They’re both beautiful people and Stylus hopes they can look back on this as a singular, happy sentiment. After all, as John Updike once wrote, “all things end under heaven, and if temporality is held to be invalidating, then nothing real succeeds.”]
“We’re doing all the work ourselves, which is why it’s taking a little bit longer,” says Evaristo. “We’ve done it on a shoe-string budget, like pretty much a non-existent budget. So it’s been a long road, but it definitely smells a lot better here now than when we got the keys.”
One of the things Evaristo is most excited for about The Handsome Daughter is the return of chef Stefan Lytwyn to a local bar kitchen. You may remember Lytwyn’s delicious creations from his tragically short-lived stint at ANA. Club 60 on River as La Fin Du Monde, which was a heavy favourite in Osborne Village when it was around.
“The menu he came up with is fantastic. He’s like a mad scientist in the kitchen. I don’t even understand how he does what he does.”
If you’re hoping that karaoke night returns to the building, you might not want to hold your breath, as Evaristo says he doesn’t share the “love affair” for it that so many old regulars have. But that’s all right, because they’re leaving it to the professionals.
“We’re open to pretty much anything and everything as far as live music goes. Our main focus is being a live music venue.”
Evaristo knew well the chance there might be a curse on the building, what with the game of musical chairs different tenants have played over the years. But that isn’t stressing him out.
“To me it’s perfect. There’ve been a lot of people in and out through these doors throughout the years and it’s never seemed to work, and it’s always bothered me that it’s never worked. The location is perfect, the neighbourhood is just begging for a venue like this, and I figured, ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’”
The brightest spot in the bar right now, the one that may as well be a flag in the concrete, claiming the land, is a massive wall mural painted by local artist Dany Reede. It’s vibrant, confusing, and truly beautifully weird, a collection of messed-up humanoids and animals and creatures that defy interpretation: the same way the best bar clientele always is.
Which means that all the hard work, all the long nights, and all the patience of every significant other, will be worth it this weekend for one simple reason.
“To have the front doors open,” Evaristo says.
And let all those creatures in.
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Stylus has been told the doors will be open at 9pm tonight, Friday October 3rd… Let’s hope our information is correct!