Kateryna Topol –
The Bier Markt corner on Esplanade at Church Street has been empty this year, but recently a few pink posters popped up on its windows promising a new opening as Dolly’s Country Bar. Esplanade Restaurants Ltd., the team behind adjacent Eloise, Bar Cart and the Old Spaghetti Factory, is offering a different cultural flavour.
Passing through the lobby at 58 The Esplanade, the space opens up to a sit-down dinner area, followed by a spacious dance floor, a few booths, and a bottle service corner at the back. The space comfortably accommodates 700 people, though it might not look like it. Two long bars, fully prepared to accommodate volume, offer craft cocktails on tap, spirits, beers and wine. The cocktail program, created by Gord Hannah (The Drake, Civil Liberties), changes seasonally learning through guest feedback.
On the menu are shareable snacks like chicken dumplings, garlic knots, handhelds like burgers and spicy maple chicken fingers, and pizzas. The thin-crust pizzas, created by a fifth-generation Italian baker and chef chef Frederico Palazzetti, will soon be available by the slice at the quick service counter.
The stage is the focus of the room, with two sliding shutter doors doubling as a projector screen. Dolly’s programming is all about music: Wednesday offers square dancing, Thursdays have live music, and the weekends are for dancing.
From the bar’s soft open, Toronto’s square dancing community felt at home at Dolly’s. “Even I had to ask if we hired dancers,” admitted chief operating officer Dan Hnatiw. “We did not; they were all guests.”
While renovations were minor, according to Hnatiw, a lot of thought went into the space. The bathroom route has been rebuilt as a hallway, the bottle service booth has a “sneaky” bathroom, and is at the front of the Green Room to give bands more space.
“If we want to attract good live acts, you need to have very good lighting; you need to have very good sound,” Hnatiw commented. And good live country acts are already lined up for the coming weeks. A lineup of country acts are already booked for the coming months.
“We’re gonna have the friendliest front door in the city,” he added. “We want to be a place to have fun.” Guest services are at the core of all Esplanade Restaurants Ltd. businesses and Dolly’s is no exception. The team purchased around 6,000 cowboy hats (pink and black) to hand out to parties, set up two photobooths at the back, and re-homed a carousel horse from The Old Spaghetti Factory for those cheeky Instagram moments.
Visit Dolly’s at 58 The Esplanade (dollys.to).
