Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Address: 425 Cherry Street
Date: July 2016
From the Palace Street School, to the Cherry Street Hotel, to the Canary Restaurant. The corner of Front & Cherry in Toronto has a long history.
In 1859 the Palace Street School was built. The area around the school was residential at the time with lots of homes and children. The Gooderham & Worts Distillery had opened in 1837 and many people who lived in the area worked there. Industry continued to grow in the area and the school closed in the 1880s.
The building across from the school was the Canadian National Railway building. Over 200 homes were demolished and replaced with a huge rail yard. It is this building in Kick-Ass, where Red Mist takes Kick-Ass (Aaron Taylor Johnson) to meet Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and then they get kidnapped. You can see the Canary Restaurant when the cars drive in and away. Sorry, we are getting ahead of ourselves. More on movies and restaurants later.
The former Palace Street School building added some additional floors and became the Cherry Street Hotel.
After the hotel closed the building was used as a warehouse for companies such as Thomas Davidson Manufacturing. The abbreviated writing on the wall has been fully restored.
In 1965 the Canary Restaurant moved from University Avenue and occupied what was formerly the lobby of the Cherry Street Hotel. It remained in business until 2007. During this time it served many a meal and was also a popular filming location.
In 1990, The Kids In The Hall aired a sketch that ended outside of the restaurant. It was called Hoopla and Bruce McCulloch steals some salt and gets away in a car driven by Dave Foley.
In the movie Three To Tango, Matthew Perry (Friends) and Neve Campbell (Party Of Five) run across Cherry Street in the rain. You get to see the Canary Restaurant sign all lit up in yellow and blue. They sit just inside the first big window and enjoy what they are told is tuna melt. Afterwards, they both throw up on the sidewalk.
Some other movie diners also eat at the Canary. In Maximum Risk, Jean Claude Van Damme and Natasha Henstridge have a coffee beside the window to the left of the photo above. They discuss their predicament and then exit the restaurant and head south down Cherry Street.
In the movie Get Rich Or Die Tryin', rapper 50 Cent is trying to impress a girl over lunch. His crew comes in and joins them at a table in the center of the photo above. When asked what he does for a living he tells her he is a rapper, a gangster rapper.
A lot has changed since 1996 when The Long Kiss Goodnight was filmed. The condo towers now rise high above everything. The area around the Canary Restaurant has been named the Canary District in its honour. The buildings all have a fresh coat of paint too. When Geena Davis throws Samuel L Jackson out of her car, it is on the west side of Cherry Street in front of buildings that no longer exist. In a bit of a continuity error, Geena dumps Samuel and drives around the corner in front of the restaurant. As he lies on the pavement, she drives past the Canary one more time before stopping to pick him up.
I wouldn't get too comfortable lying near the corner of Front and Cherry streets. In the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead a whole bunch of zombies come running from Front Street and head north on Cherry Street. As the small group of human survivors makes their escape in fortified buses, they drive away from the Canary Restaurant and then drive away from the Canary Restaurant again. Who's driving that bus, Geena Davis? No, this times it's Ving Rhames at the helm. He drives Sarah Polley and an ever decreasing cast of characters to safety.
The most recent change in the neighbourhood is a new Indigenous Hub. It sits right beside the Canary Restaurant building. This metal wall artwork features an etched bear, wolf, turtle and more. No matter what happens around it the Canary Restaurant building will be there to witness it all.
Map of Our World
Canary RestaurantPost # 350