{"id":9055,"date":"2014-10-03T14:46:27","date_gmt":"2014-10-03T14:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=9055"},"modified":"2014-10-03T14:46:27","modified_gmt":"2014-10-03T14:46:27","slug":"raising-a-handsome-daughter-long-awaited-venue-finally-opens-doors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2014\/10\/03\/raising-a-handsome-daughter-long-awaited-venue-finally-opens-doors\/","title":{"rendered":"Raising a Handsome Daughter :: Long awaited venue (finally?) opens doors"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jay\"<\/a><\/p>\n

by Matt Williams<\/strong><\/p>\n

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….<\/i><\/p>\n

Jay Evaristo is tired. Between the 40-50 unpaid hours a week he\u2019s 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\u2019s newest venue, The Handsome Daughter, some basic elements of survival have fallen by the wayside.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinding time to eat and sleep, and see my family,\u201d Evaristo says when asked what the hardest part of getting The Handsome Daughter off the ground has been. \u201cMy girlfriend is a very, very patient woman. I\u2019m just trying to balance it all. We all have other shit going on, we all have day jobs, still gotta pay the bills.”<\/p>\n

Evaristo and his partner, Kirian Eyford, took over the former Rose n\u2019 Bee Pub (also, in not too long of a time span, The Standard and Hooligan\u2019s) in February.\u00a0 But they didn\u2019t want to just throw a new sign above the garage fa\u00e7ade and keep business the same as usual. Instead, they decided to gut the place from the ground up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were a lot of electrical problems, there were just years of neglect,\u201d Evaristo says. \u201cThe basement was a goddamned horror show. It was like an episode of Hoarders.<\/em> In the first month or so we took out about four tonnes of garbage.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n

Off to the side a chalkboard stands with a list titled simply \u201cSTEVE STUFF,\u201d 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: \u201cKISS FREYJA.\u201d Freyja is Steve\u2019s 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.”<\/em>]<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re doing all the work ourselves, which is why it\u2019s taking a little bit longer,\u201d says Evaristo. \u201cWe\u2019ve done it on a shoe-string budget, like pretty much a non-existent budget. So it\u2019s been a long road, but it definitely smells a lot better here now than when we got the keys.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe menu he came up with is fantastic. He\u2019s like a mad scientist in the kitchen. I don\u2019t even understand how he does what he does.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re hoping that karaoke night returns to the building, you might not want to hold your breath, as Evaristo says he doesn\u2019t share the \u201clove affair\u201d for it that so many old regulars have. But that\u2019s all right, because they\u2019re leaving it to the professionals.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re open to pretty much anything and everything as far as live music goes. Our main focus is being a live music venue.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019t stressing him out.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me it\u2019s perfect. There\u2019ve been a lot of people in and out through these doors throughout the years and it\u2019s never seemed to work, and it\u2019s always bothered me that it\u2019s never worked. The location is perfect, the neighbourhood is just begging for a venue like this, and I figured, \u2018what\u2019s the worst that could happen?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo have the front doors open,\u201d Evaristo says.<\/p>\n

And let all those creatures in.<\/p>\n

————-<\/p>\n

Stylus has been\u00a0told the doors will be open at 9pm tonight, Friday October 3rd… Let’s hope our information is correct!<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9055\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}