“Customers start crying, then I start crying”: The owner of the Imperial Pub on closing the 81-year-old institution

News that the Imperial Pub would be closing after 81 years of pulling pints hit Toronto barflies hard. The venerable student watering hole has become a part of the fabric of the city—iconic, enduring and not interested in the latest craft cocktail trend. “Everyone thought of us as their little secret,” says owner Fred Newman, whose father opened the pub (then a hotel “beverage room”) the year before Fred was born.

Earlier this fall, the owners of the building sold it to a developer, which has partnered with TMU on a project that will include student housing. It has been bittersweet, Newman says, to see lineups of people coming in for one last pint in the bar’s final days. Here, he tells us about his earliest Imperial memories, why trends aren’t always worth following and what’s happening with the fish tank.

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It’s been a couple of months since we first learned that the Imperial Pub would be closing for good. I’m sure you’ve had your fair share of weepy goodbyes We have. Customers will start talking about what the place has meant to them. They’ll start crying, then I’ll start crying. A lot of people have come in to say goodbye, to see it one more time, saying, I used to come here in the 1970s, ’80s, ’90s. They’re reliving times that they enjoyed here, and honestly, it’s been overwhelming. The other day, one gentleman said to me, “I haven’t been here in 57 years, but I wanted to come back to say goodbye.” So, not exactly a great customer, but it’s nice to know he held on to the fondness. I had a group come in here dressed all in black—they told me they were having a funeral for the pub. They wrote a eulogy and delivered it by the fireplace, which was their regular spot.

That seems to be the Imperial’s secret: so many generations of people who consider it “their” spot. That’s exactly it. People bring their friends and tell them, “I discovered this bar,” but we’ve been open for 80 years. In all that time, we’ve been everyone’s best-kept secret. This is the busiest we’ve ever been since we announced the closure a couple of months ago. In the past couple of weeks, we’ve had lineups going up the block. But mostly we were never the place that was jam-packed. The Imperial Pub is comfortable, a place where you could chat and listen to soft jazz. It was never too loud or rowdy, and not the place to have a fight. We never set out to be the busiest or the coolest bar, and I think that is what has kept us around for all these years.

Your dad founded the Imperial in 1944. What was it like back then? I was born the year after the bar opened—although it wasn’t a pub at that point; it was a “beverage room” in a hotel. The law was that you had to have at least nine rooms for rent, which we had upstairs. In the 1940s, the liquor laws in Ontario were such that if you had a public house, you were allowed to sell draft beer or bottled beer, but not wine or liquor. Lounges could sell bottled beer and wine, but no draft beer. You had to close at 6:30 every night and then reopen at 8 p.m., so that customers would actually leave and go home for dinner. There was one entrance for men and another one for women, or women who had male escorts. You had to have two separate rooms—that’s where the aquarium wall comes from. My dad wanted something that would be beautiful and interesting to look at that you could see from both sides of the bar.

What’s happening with the aquarium? The guy who has been taking care of the fish for a long time is going to take them, along with the pumps and the equipment. The aquarium itself is too heavy to move, so that’s going to stay where it is.

What’s your earliest Imperial memory? I guess it was when I was two or three years old, running around the bar in my short pants. All of the staff were so nice to me because I was the boss’s son. It was an absolutely great place to grow up, and by the time I was nine, I knew I wanted to join the business. Other kids wanted to be firemen; I wanted to be a publican. I joined the team full time in the 1960s. Later on, my own kids started coming in with me on the weekends. They would watch Sesame Street on the bar’s big-screen TV. This was back when the televisions people had in their homes were tiny, so they loved it.

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You were young when you took over the business. Did you ever want to change it up? Absolutely, I did. I came to my dad with a bunch of different ideas—things I thought we could do to improve business. For example, I wanted to play rock and roll. This was the ’60s. The Jarvis House was jammed every night, and I thought we should do the same. My dad wouldn’t budge, and now I see that he was right. The Jarvis House played rock and roll, but they also had fights every night—and they only lasted 10 years. I think what my dad knew—and what I now understand—is that you have to know what you are. We were very proud to be a pub that did book launches and poetry readings. Trends come and go, but we are not a rock bar, and we’re not an upscale lounge or a cocktail bar either.

Cocktails are big business, though. You never thought about charging $25 for an Aperol spritz? We’ve had different bartenders over the years, and some of them made great cocktails, but that was never going to be our identity. It’s not about what’s good or even what we like. My son is in charge of our food operations. When he took over, he wanted to try some new things. One summer, he put gazpacho on the menu. We both really like gazpacho, but customers would send it back saying their soup was cold. That sort of sums it all up.

How have your customers changed over the years? Well, what’s funny is that, because many of our customers were students at Ryerson, now TMU, they’ve stayed the same age. Honestly, we have been lucky to have students behave themselves so well here over the years. I guess one change is that young people are drinking less than they used to, but that’s not something we mind. One of the things that students will say about the Imperial is that they can come in here and read a book or do some homework, and nobody will pressure them to buy alcohol.

Okay, but surely you have witnessed one or two barroom brawls. There was one night, maybe 15 years ago. I was sitting in my office, and I could hear yelling from the bar. There were two guys standing nose-to-nose at the pool table, and they were huge. I’m five foot nine, and they were like seven-foot giants. I walked up and tapped one of them on the shoulder. He turned around with his fist cocked but then he looked at me and said, “I don’t hit old men who wear glasses.” I said “Well, that’s good for you and for me.” We all laughed, and the situation resolved itself. What’s funny is that, looking back, I didn’t even think I was old at the time.

Given your fondness for TMU students, is it any consolation to know that the building will be used for student housing rather than, say, a new luxury condo? Oh, definitely, that makes it better. We have had a wonderful relationship with the school over the years, and student housing is something the city needs. I just wish it didn’t have to be here.

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With all the love people have for this place, I wouldn’t be surprised to see someone chain themselves to the building in protest. Oh, god, don’t even suggest that. Of course I wish that things were different. We don’t want this to be the end—and maybe it’s not the end. But, as far as this location goes, it’s a done deal.

Toronto has lost so many iconic, historic businesses in the past decade. Should we be doing a better job of preserving these kinds of spots? Definitely. I’m looking out the bar’s windows right now and wondering why we didn’t leave Yonge Street alone 15 years ago or 30 years ago—whenever they decided to build the square and destroy the east side of the street. Yonge was an upscale location in its day. It did eventually devolve and develop a very bad reputation by the ’80s, but why didn’t anybody try to fix it? Now we have the giant AMC theatre and a Shake Shack. They tried to make a mini Times Square but ended up sterilizing it. When you get rid of character, you can’t bring it back.

Any plans for the final night? There is a group called the Jazz Generation who have played here every Friday for years. They are incredible musicians, and they’re all in their 90s now. So they’re going to do one last show.

You mentioned that this may not be the end for the Imperial. Are you considering a new location? Right now we’re taking a break. We’re holding on to everything, though, and putting it all in storage. If my boys decide they want to stay in this business, maybe we’ll do something new. When people ask about our business model, I like to say: open a bar and stick around for 80 years. I can’t say what will happen in the future, but it does feel like there’s something here worth holding on to.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.