One of Toronto’s preeminent downtown steakhouses has closed down permanently, and after sitting dormant for months, it’s finally about to get a new tenant.
Let’s face it: steakhouses in Toronto are a dime a dozen, but that doesn’t discredit the very real and good things they’re doing for the city’s residents, namely ensuring we all get our fair share of Surf and Turf and $25 cocktails when the whim strikes.
In the past year or so, the city’s steakhouse numbers, both within and beyond the downtown core, seem to have been on a steep increase, with new-ish additions like Animl, Linny’s and Blue Bovine earning their fair share of limelight in the past several months.
Unfortunately, with such a surge also comes the inevitable loss of some preexisting establishments: it’s just the law of the concrete jungle.
This past summer, one such casualty was The Shore Club, Toronto’s own location of what was once a nationwide chain that has since been reduced to just a single location in Ottawa.
An Entertainment District stalwart for over a decade, the steakhouse was a reliable stop for the many visitors and residents alike who pass through the neighbourhood, occupying a spacious, swanky space at the base of the RBC Centre, just next door to the similarly lavish Ritz-Carlton.
In the early summer of 2024, the steakhouse announced that it would be shutting its doors permanently as of the end of August, opting to simply close out the chain’s Toronto chapter rather than renew the lease.
It has been about seven months since the steakhouse officially closed for good, and there appears to be little movement in terms of new tenants in the space, with the Shore Club signage only recently coming down.
Dormant storefronts are nothing new in Toronto, but the space left behind by The Shore Club is prime in every sense of the word, which made it particularly surprising that it took so long for someone new to snatch it up — but things will soon be turning around.
A representative from Cadillac Fairview, who owns the building, confirms that there is a new tenant on the way, but their identity is being kept strictly under wraps for now.
Until then, you’ll just have to make do with one of Toronto’s dozen other steakhouses, you poor thing!
The Shore Club was formerly located at 155 Wellington West.
