A super-popular pizzeria in Little Italy just opened a bar next door

Name: Danny’s Next Door Contact: 613 College St., dannyspizzatavern.com/dannys-next-door, @dannysnextdoor
Neighbourhood: Little Italy
Owners: Daniel Barna, Mark Kupfert, Anna Hopkins and Daniel Suss Chef: Jonathan Pde Accessibility: Not fully accessible

Nearly three years ago, Danny’s Pizza Tavern burst onto Little Italy’s food scene, bringing tavern-style pies, mozzarella sticks and fishbowl Aperol spritzes. “The original concept for Danny’s was to be a neighborhood tavern where people could just walk in, have a quick drink and some pizza,” says co-owner Daniel Barna. “But it became so popular there was never room for walk-ins.”

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And never mind walk-ins—it became next to impossible to even book a table on Resy. So Danny’s Next Door, which is (as its name suggests) next door, is an attempt to handle the spillover. “The difference is that Danny’s Next Door is really meant to be a bar,” says Barna. “We encourage people to stand when there are no seats, and we don’t take reservations.”

While the sibling spots may look similar (think Cheers meets ’70s rec room meets…dolphins?) and serve similar menus, there are marked differences. “Danny’s Next Door is open until 2 a.m., so the evening might start off with folks having pizza for dinner, then morph into a night of beer drinking, hot dog eating and sports watching if there’s a big game on,” says Barna. “And even later on, it turns into a rager.”

The Food

All the heavy hitters from the original Danny’s are on offer, like the pizza and the caesar salad, but Next Door’s menu does have a mind of its own. “While we continue to offer approachable American bistro items, our focus here is on sharable bar food,” says Barna. To that end, there’s steak tartare and buttery garlic knots. The BLT is a master class in balance, with thick-cut bacon, crisp lettuce and sweet tomato stuffed into pockets of aïoli-slathered pizza dough. The old-school meatballs, swimming in house marinara and dusted with a flurry of parmesan, are another standout—particularly if one is nostalgic for ’50s New York.

The Drinks

Large, in charge and recognizable is the mantra for the drinks at Next Door. There are cartoonishly big classic cocktails, like the house martini—stuffed with olives and intentionally spilling over its rim—or the aforementioned fishbowl Aperol spritzes. “We aren’t trying to push boundaries here—we’re just trying to make the best versions of everyone’s favourites,” says Barna. Wine doesn’t exceed $85 a bottle or $17 a glass, and eight taps pour eight different beers, which is enough to placate anyone cheering on the losing team.

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The Space

Cozy booths, ruddy carpeting, stained-glass accents, a leather-trimmed bar and a ton of mahogany millwork come together to evoke bars of bygone eras. The room transports diners into a decade that never existed: it’s a little bit ’20s, a splash of ’80s and a whole lot of ’70s. Whatever the period of reference is, rest assured—Danny’s doesn’t take itself too seriously. If you don’t believe us, just take a gander at the painting commissioned by co-owner Anna Hopkins, which depicts a pool full of dolphins having a pizza party next to iconic landmarks of Montreal, the city where the owners met.