Sneaky Dee’s is saved!! (Now what?) Or, two tales of strange bedfellows in the Toronto live independent music scene.
The news broke two Fridays ago — just as Torontonians stumbled into a semi-long weekend, before our current wildfire climate apocalypse — that the developer pulled their application to demolish Sneaky Dee’s, the beloved nacho-palace-slash-music-venue at the corner of College and Bathurst. In this dystopian future, the building would have been replaced with a 15-storey mixed-use tower, ostensibly including a refurbished new Sneaky Dee’s — but with a smaller footprint, in the basement. Huge congrats to the youthful organizers of the Save Sneaky Dee’s campaign for being the noise that annoys and gets things done, the squeaky fly in the fryer-greased ointment unafraid of bugging City Hall and making Sneak’s an issue in the local news, even during the craziest June of FIFA, Pride, and a thousand other festivals. They announced the news by gleefully tearing down that loathsome development proposal sign from the brick wall on Bathurst. Even the Mayor celebrated with a plate of sour-cream-and-guac-coated nachos in one of the iconic booths.
But it wasn’t just kicking up a fuss, they did some digging and found the unlikeliest of allies for a bunch of punks: a bank! Apparently the neighbouring RBC owns a parcel of land slated for redevelopment — a juicy piece of intel which had seemingly been overlooked in the application. And the bank was not down with the plan. The letter from Globe Realty (the Royal Bank holding co.) to Councillor Dianne Saxe and Toronto East York Community Council contains this delightfully wholesome, neighbourly nugget: “Our business has co-existed with the Sneaky Dees use for many years and we would be entirely content to see that relationship continue.”
The developer formally withdrawing their application in the wake of this revelation, was a shocking happy end to the saga. (For now.)
I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised.
I hadn’t written about this renewed threat to Sneaky Dee’s, in part because I thought I had said all there was to say on the issue when it first reared its head six years ago. I stand by those words (including Souz Dal aka “the rusty ball” being retrospectively cool), and encourage you to click on the link if you want to read what I have to say both about Sneaky’s cultural importance and the complexities of balancing cultural space with the demands for housing in a city with haphazard, antiquated zoning.
Since the original 2020 redevelopment application — which included a small, likely non-viable space for a music venue — was stuck in review and negotiations with the City for over half a decade, my prediction was that the revised proposal would end up getting rejected and end up at the Ontario Land Tribunal, where — sadly seemingly inevitably — the developer-friendly province would approve it. And Toronto’s music community would go through another wrenching, long-term upheaval like we did with the Silver Dollar, because the City has few effective tools at its disposal to protect private businesses that also serve as a cultural space.
I’m so glad I was wrong.
But as I said to the Toronto Star in this story on the Sneaky saga well worth reading by Manuela Vega — and I’m paraphrasing Mark Davyd of the UK’s Music Venue Trust here: the closure of any music venue is “always a tragedy because it means there’s no longer a place to perform or hear culture or experience culture in your neighbourhood or on your block.” And a bank being the saviour feels a bit like the developer getting off on a technicality, for the intended destruction of a historically significant third space in the city. (It also hardly feels permanent or secure.)
Third spaces: those rare, vital places that neither home nor work (nor school). The cafe you’re lingering in just a little too long (to write this piece). The park that’s more than just a baseball field, even if there’s never enough benches. The club or concert hall you might meet your future spouse.
If you’re not up on the Silver Dollar story, well, pull up a chair.
It’s the case most parallel to the now-alternate timeline in which the Sneaky Dee’s block’s redevelopment application gets approved. Back in 2013, a developer proposed razing the historic Waverly Hotel and Silver Dollar Room on Spadina just north of College, a site also home to the lower-level dance club the Comfort Zone, to make way for a high-rise student residence. The City rejected the application and intervened on the basis of the Silver Dollar’s near-half-a-century’s existence as a live venue for blues, jazz, and rock’n’roll. But the primary tool the City had to save the Silver Dollar was the Ontario Heritage Act, and in 2015, thanks to the efforts of then-Councillor Joe Cressy, it was declared a heritage site.
But the heritage designation only protected the club’s physical assets: in order to come to a settlement, the developer was required for the new building to include a club called the Silver Dollar Room, and preserve its historic sign, its historic bar, its historic murals, and other elements. But there was no way to demand business continuity: the developer could charge whatever they wanted in rent, and the definition of an “entertainment venue” did not necessarily include live music. It almost certainly did not include the inimitable booking of Dan Burke, the Silver Dollar’s legendary, final show promoter (of its Spadina incarnation, that is — spoiler alert).
METZ on stage at the last night of the old Silver Dollar
April 30, 2017, was the epic farewell show at the Dollar. Toronto noise-rock trio METZ was the last band to take the club’s stage. Dan Burke crowd-surfed on the Silver Dollar sign. The deafened, dazed, elated yet melancholic crowd spilled onto Spadina. A year later, the building was demolished. The pandemic hit, and the years ticked over.
By the fall of 2021, the club had been rebuilt. For those who got an early look at the new Silver Dollar (including yours truly), it was eerie. Even though the dimensions matched the original floor plan, the space was too bright, too clean, too perfect. At the time, I compared it to a museum diorama version of a rock club: an oddly clinical re-enactment of a lived-in third space: “This is how the people used to entertain themselves in the 20th century.” On one level, they did an incredible job: on first stepping into the venue, you can’t even tell it’s not physically the same room at all: it was completely razed and rebuilt at grade on the ground floor of the new Waverly tower, whereas the old Silver Dollar was up a half-flight of stairs. On the other hand, could this pristine space summon the same grimy magic?
It took a long time for the new Silver Dollar to find a venue operator. Some blamed this on the math not math-ing between the club’s modest 165 capacity (as the rebuild did not include the adjoining pool hall room behind the original bar) and the likely exorbitant commercial rent being asked.
The view of the proposed stage area at the rebuilt Silver Dollar
In the meantime, to add to the confusion, a competing new Silver Dollar location — and adjoining new Comfort Zone — opened on Queen West in Parkdale, at the height of livestream-mania in 2020. Both rooms remain active to this day, though this Silver Dollar is mostly an event rental venue, while seemingly claiming the club’s history. The Comfort Zone appears to have more continuity with its Spadina predecessor’s all-night, after-midnight beat frenzy. (I’m not going to lie, I haven’t been; my raving days are long behind me.)
For almost six years, no live music was heard at 486 Spadina, until a “two-night reopening weekend” at the Silver Dollar Room took place in March 2023, featuring ‘50s and ‘60s cover bands to mark the Dollar’s 65th anniversary. And then… nothing. After this abortive relaunch, the gleaming new club sat empty for another two and a half years, a massive “retail for lease” sign hung below the historic neon sign.
AND THEN… in September 2025, I was invited by some friends’ band to a soft-launch party at the “new Silver Dollar.” WTF?, I thought. Only now, it was operating under a new name, Dina’s Tavern. I couldn’t make it, but my friends said it was awesome. A few months later I saw for myself, and they were right. With perfectly dimmed lighting and cozifying potted palms, it felt like the old Silver Dollar, in spite of the uncannily direct entry into the room. But with nicer washrooms — for whatever cred points that flushes away.
With the folks behind Track & Field Bar down the street running things, Dina’s has got the formula down: live music seven nights a week, everything from bluegrass to jazz to indie, most nights PWYC or no cover, affordable drink prices (in this economy?). And they have a reputable booker: Nick McKinlay, well-loved drummer for local power-popsters Motorists. With its proximity to U of T’s St. George campus, Nick relayed to me that Dina’s has successfully marketed the club’s “vibe” to a whole new generation of gig-goers who were in high school during the pandemic and are curious about any experience of “live music” and less picky about who’s on stage. Is it a coincidence that Dina’s mascot is a cool Raybans-wearing rat?
It’s a fascinating glimpse into the crystal ball of future live-music consumption and also — maybe not a happy end to the Silver Dollar saga, but a bittersweet one. The upside: A small venue comes back to life and provides a third space for a whole new generation of musicians and show-goers. The downside: It took over eight years. Kids of legal drinking age today were ten years old when the Silver Dollar closed (feel old now?), and most likely have no memory of its history. As if to complete the severance with the past, the historic Silver Dollar sign was covered up with a tarp back in January, apparently as part of a trademark dispute.
***
What was curious to me is that in the Save Sneaky Dee’s campaign messaging, the Silver Dollar was used as a cautionary example of developer/venue partnerships (true), but also that it was deemed to be an abject failure (debatable). No one mentioned its recent resurrection as Dina’s Tavern. Understandable, when the objective was to preserve Sneaky Dee’s as is. Not to resurrect the Texas longhorn as some another kind of hipster animal.
But what are we looking to save with Sneaky Dee’s: is it the business or the venue? Or is the soul of the space soaked into the floorboards through 35 years of draught beer spills, and these irreplaceable?
It’s a philosophical question I asked in Any Night of the Week as, back in 2001, the old El Mocambo — then also booked by Dan Burke — was sold and renovated. Was it still the El Mocambo after that? The grimy charm was gone and one could argue the old El Mo died. But it went on to a new life, under new management and booking by Yvonne Matsell, for another decade-plus until it was sold and renovated again. And now is in another state of “Schrödinger’s venue.”
Regardless of what form it takes, our grassroots music venues need to be protected and preserved. No one should have to close down if it’s not really by their own choice. Most venues are still private businesses and if the operators decide to throw in the towel, hopefully it’s choosing a graceful retirement, not giving up in frustration due to the inherent precarity of the business, let alone getting forced out.
That’s why I’ve joined forces with the good people of CIMA and MusicOntario to launch LIVE Music Toronto, a new local independent live music association dedicated to establishing a unifying voice for our grassroots venues, promoters, presenters, and festivals. It’s a nascent organization — we just announced our launch last month — and we have a lot of big dreams for what we can do to support and protect these vital “Live Independent Venues and Events” (LIVE!). The lack of historic business preservation for longstanding venues is just one of many things we want to address — alongside fighting for affordable cultural spaces, better planning policy, and new ownership and fundraising models.
And to our friends at Sneaky Dee’s: we love you and we hope you join us too!
Follow LIVE Music Toronto on IG @live.music.to.
Photos by JD, except for vintage Silver Dollar photo by Ansaf Ahmad from Unsplash.
