Imperial Pub closes its doors after 81 years in downtown Toronto

After more than 80 years in business it is last call at the Imperial Pub. Beth Macdonell was inside the bar as patrons said goodbye to the downtown institution.

TORONTO — The Imperial Pub is closing its doors after 81 years of business in Toronto.

The pub at the corner of Yonge and Dundas first opened its doors during World War II. Ricky Newman, whose great-grandfather bought the building back in 1944, said the pub has been open every single day except Christmas each year.

On a rainy Saturday eight decades later, the pub is shutting its doors for good.

“I think we were a lot of people’s best kept secret,” Newman said as pubgoers around him enjoyed their final pints inside the historic tavern.

The closure comes as Toronto Metropolitan University plans to develop the block into a new student-housing and education complex.

Newman said the family is sad to leave but glad the building is going into the hands of the university.

“It’s heartbreaking that we won’t be here but it’s it’s wonderful to know that it’ll be part of the university because we always felt like we were,” he said.

The pub first opened as a hotel beverage room in the 1940s, back when men and women were not allowed to sit together under Ontario’s liquor rules at the time. Over the decades, the pub became known for its live music, cheap beer, library bar and pool table.

As the pub began winding down on Saturday, former students and regulars gathered inside to enjoy the cozy feel one last time.

Evan Sandham, a regular of the pub since 2012, said he overheard older folks at the bar share memories of the place dating back several decades.

Britt Hamilton, a 1991 graduate of TMU, said she used to visit the pub every so often back in the day with friends.

“It was just a really comfy, cozy place that we could walk to and just get rid of the stress of school and have a few cigarettes back then, and some beers,” she said with a laugh.

Hamilton said she can’t think of any other bar in the area that can come near the kind of community that was fostered at Imperial Pub.

“You could sit and just talk to anybody who was here,” she said. “It was the type of bar where you can come in and just sit on the couch. You didn’t have to come with people that you knew because, you know, you would always meet people here.”

Over three decades later, Hamilton said she still frequents the bar with friends every Christmas for a reunion.

“I guess we’re gonna have to find somewhere new now,” she said.

Others said the pub felt like one of the last cultural landmarks in the neighbourhood.

Jade DeLuca-Ahoora, a recent graduate of TMU and a local filmmaker, said the pub’s closure is alarming. She said she has noticed more and more creative and historic places coming to a close like Velvet Underground, which was a Queen Street West staple for three decades for alternative music lovers.

“Toronto is losing so much culture right now,” she said, adding that she is upset the building was not protected as a heritage site.

Newman said the pub has “all been great fun.”

“It’s been an unbelievable privilege to be here and to host the City of Toronto,” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 15, 2025.

Fatima Raza, The Canadian Press