Will the latest reboot of the Melody Bar revive the Gladstone’s rizz?
Cassette, a new retro-inspired diner, opens later this month
On October 25, the Gladstone’s Melody Bar will get yet another reboot—this time as Cassette, a “retro-inspired restaurant and performance venue” promising a martini menu, diner-inspired food (pigs in blankets, burgers) and a monthly residency with Canada’s Drag Race alumna Tynomi Banks. It’s the hotel’s latest attempt to recapture the creative pulse that once made it the beating heart of West Queen West.
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For a brief moment in the mid-aughts, this stretch of Queen was one of the coolest streets in the world (even Vogue said so), and the Gladstone was its anchor. The hotel, built in 1889 and lovingly restored by the Zeidler family in 2005, was a sanctuary for Toronto’s artists and wonderful weirdos. Its karaoke nights were legendary—where goths, bros, queers and bachelorettes all took turns at the mic in a scruffy room with scuffed floors, mismatched chairs and paint that was always halfway to peeling. It was messy. It was magic.
When Streetcar Developments and Dream Unlimited acquired the Gladstone in 2020, they promised to preserve the hotel’s creative DNA. The rebrand to Gladstone House the following year kept art on the walls (by some 50 local artists), but most of the hotel’s communal spaces were repurposed or privatized. The ballroom became an event space, and the public galleries became off-limits to anyone who wasn’t a hotel guest. The once-chaotic, come-one-come-all energy was traded for corporate polish.
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The saddest casualty was the Melody Bar. It still hosted karaoke nights, but the original Gladstone spirit was gone, its charm replaced by a kind of forced cool: too much pink neon and faux industrial wiring and too many disco balls.
This is the Melody’s Bar’s second major reno in just four years—a sign that, even with corporate backing, it wasn’t thriving. But that’s Toronto these days: one beloved, slightly scruffy institution at a time, getting renovated beyond recognition.
Maybe with its drag nights, stiff martinis and new retro look, Cassette will hit rewind and cue up the magic that made the Gladstone, well, the Gladstone. And hey, at least the mic’s still plugged in and the beer’s still cold.
Caroline Aksich, a National Magazine Award recipient, is an ex-Montrealer who writes about Toronto’s ever-evolving food scene, real estate and culture for Toronto Life, Fodor’s, Designlines, Canadian Business, Glory Media and Post City. Her work ranges from features on octopus-hunting in the Adriatic to celebrity profiles.
