Sassafraz
Photo by David Topping. Click to see the original on its page.
For those of you not familiar with Accordion City, Sassafraz was a restaurant in the tony boutique area of town known as Yorkville. The place had a reputation for so-so food at ridiculous prices (I’ve had brunch and lunch there, and yeah, you can get much better for the money), but that’s not why one went there. It was a big celebrity hangout. Whenever a big movie star was in town on a movie shoot or publicity tour — and that’s fairly often — they often ended up at Sassafraz.
I use the past tense because Sassafraz burned down yesterday afternoon in a five-alarm fire that brought over 40 fire vehicles and called for 135 firefighters. Here are some major news outlet stories on the fire:
- Fire destroys celeb hangout in Yorkville (Globe and Mail)
- Yorkville celebrity roost burns (Toronto Star)
- Star hangout burns (Toronto Sun)
And here’s what the online locals have had to say:
- Sassafraz on Fire, No Celebs Injured (BlogTO)
- SASSAFRAZ IS BURNING! (Raymi the Minx)
- Sassafraz in on Fire! (Torontoist)
My Cousin Works There
My cousin, Malou, is in the restaurant business. She worked in Manila for years, then in New York, and as of March, she’s been working here in Accordion City — at Sassafraz. Naturally, the first thing I did was to call her mobile phone and see if she was all right.
“C’mon,” I said to no one in particular while the phone rang, “pick up…”
“Hello?”
“Hey, Malou, it’s Joey — just checking to see if you’re all right.”
“All right? Oh yeah — the restaurant. It’s okay, I took a sick day today.”
“That’s got to be the best timing ever,” I said, “I’ve already told Mom that Sassafraz is on fire, so expect a call from her any time now. And hey, if you need anything, you know that you can call any one of us.” (The closest immediate family she’s got is in California; the rest are in Manila.) “I’ll see you at the Christmas party if not sooner.”
Whew.
Schadenfreude
I find it disappointing — but not surprising — at the various online comments expressing near-glee at the news that Sassafraz burned down (one commenter on BlogTO was hoping that the Drake Hotel was next). While I believe that celebrities are generally over-worshipped and overrated, I don’t see see much reason to jump for joy at the loss of a local business, especially one that played a key part in the Toronto International Film Festival, which in turn feeds one of the city’s most high-profile industries, the film industry. Consider also the people who worked at Sassafraz. Thankfully, none of them were injured, but consider that they’re now without a source of income, and we’re deep into the holiday season.
If local indie-hipster hangout 56 Kensington (a charming hole-in-the-wall in the city’s most boho neighbourhood) had burned down, there’d have been a benefit concert with the Barcelona Pavilion as the headline act, and there would’ve been a general call among the local underemployed arts graderati to save an important cultural landmark.
In my opinion, there’s room and need for local institutions of all sorts in this city — from hipster dive bars to Zagat top-rated restos. The sooner we get our collective heads out of our collective asses and recognize that, the better this city will be.
7 replies on “Sassafraz and Schadenfreude”
From Frank magazine, I understand it was the place to go for 10,000/night hookers. Not to worry, I’m sure they’ll be on their backs in no time…
Thanks Joey for the comment about the schadenfreude, it’s something I don’t understand about some people in Toronto. The same thing as I commented a few weeks ago about people who do not like Bay Street suit-wearing people. There is nothing wrong with it, if it doesn’t belong to one’s circle, too bad. It almost seems as if they’re bitter/resented that they don’t belong to that circle.
It’s too bad for Sassafraz, I really enjoyed the martinis there, and the bar was fun to go after work.
As someone who’s gone through a fire 2 floors below my apartment, had a downstairs neighbour at another place who nearly burnt down the building 3 times and last summer watched a warehouse 5 buildings from me burn to the ground, I’d like to go on record and say that fire is not funny in any context.
The damage it does, both to structures and to people phyche’s is horrifying.
Anyone who jokes about fire has never experienced one.
Carson
Sassafraz was poseur central. My office is 40 feet down the street & I’ve entertainedmany clients there in the last decade. Celebs go there? Yeah right. I’ll bet you more celebs head to the McD’s on Ave. Rd & Bloor than Sassafraz when in Yorkville. But they don’t tell you that every wannabe in the 416-905 area is there looking to be looked at. Even when it was the Belair Cafe, it was poseur ground zero. Death to Sassafraz. Death to poseurs.
Such a comment of high jackassery from someone who works in the Yorkville area could have only come from my high school classmate Nick C.
Poseurs generally cause less harm to society than those in your profession. As both Shakespeare and Bloom County’s L.H. Puttgrass said, “Death to lawyers!”
Yes Jose Martin DV, this is another sweet sentiment from your neighbourhood Steve-Dallas-wannabe. While I agree that all lawyers are scum (with apologies to my lovely barrister-spouse) I firmly believe that poseurs are worse. Why? Because lawyers will tell you to your face that they’re satanists and will take your momma’s pension $$. There is no artifice in this evil. On the other hand, poseurs pretend to be something they’re not. And there is no honour in any pretension. I steadfastly repeat my mantra – Death to Poseurs. Death to Sassafraz. Bring back Cafe Marika.
And remember, in order to show the goodness in society, you need to have evil to compare it against. And here is the rub: Without our black hearts to compare against, society would be a singular shade of boring grey. Tell me that any other identifiable group provides this comprehensive level of contribution to modern society?
Are lawyers horrible? Probably. But tell me this: If you’re buying a business, a house, lending your retirement money to a borrower, entering a business deal with a company, or are charged with a criminal act which you didn’t do, are you going to do it all by yourself or would you hire an errors & ommissions-insured lawyer (who you could sue if he fucked up) to protect your ass & make sure you don’t get screwed? If you choose the former, good luck to you. I hope you like prison or bankruptcy.
Now tell me, do you still want to kill all the lawyers? And if so, would you kill Matlock first or last?
Your jackass friend.
“Wow,” said Wendy after reading that. “He really is a jackass.”
“Told you,” I replied.