Fat City Blues wants to bring N’awlins to College Street

The owners of Parkdale’s Small Town Food Co. and former Drake Hotel bartender Simon Ho are teaming up to bring a taste of Louisiana to Dufferin Grove. Fat City Blues—named for a New Orleans entertainment district popular in the ‘70s and ‘80s—is set to open later this month at College and Delaware where Huntsman Tavern used to be. Fat City Blues will primarily be a live blues and jazz bar, which means that the focus will be on what’s pouring: the drinks menu will feature classic NOLA cocktails (French 75s, sazeracs, hurricanes) as well as the bar’s own twists on them; cans of easy-drinking beer; and a signature brew the guys are working on with Duggan’s Brewery that’s yet to be named (but really, how could it not be “Fat City Brews”?). Of course, there will be po’ boys as well as baked oysters, and come warmer weather, the patio will host crab boils—“Good, simple food,” says chef Talis Baker-Voakes. “When you go to a restaurant in New Orleans, you feel like you’re going into someone’s house. It’s really welcoming,” says Ho. “We want to bring back that social aspect to eating and drinking.”