CIVIL LIBERTIES 878 Bloor West, 416-546-5634, civillibertiesbar.com, @CivLibTo
Want to exercise your Civil Liberties? Just follow the golden pineapple (the international symbol of hospitality) centred on the bar’s facade.
A night at the newish spot at the corner of Bloor and Ossington – opened last November – will inevitably revolve around the enormous bar where co-owners Nick Kennedy, Cole Stanford and David Huynh chat casually with guests while mixing cocktails and cracking beers.
To nurture a more interactive experience, the owners choose not to offer table service. Instead, you’re encouraged to order from the bar (the top of which is purposely shallow to narrow the gap between bartender and patron), a convivial hub where rounds flow and jokes fly. There are tables at the back, front and along the wall, of course, but the bar’s the sweet spot.
A premium is placed on hospitality at Civil Liberties, and this is one reason why there’s no printed drinks menu. Cocktails (originals and classics) can be had, but the owners insist this is not a cocktail bar. The dude slugging beer with a whiskey back has as much right to a bar stool as the slick gent slurping a Martinez.
Civil Liberties isn’t a restaurant (there’s no kitchen), but nibbles like cheese, meat and pickles (far less toxic alternatives to the McDevil directly across the road) are plated at the bar upon request.
This is a bar built (painstakingly by its three owners, it’s worth adding) for comfort. It’s defined by warmth and simplicity, tin ceilings, an old piano brooding in the slanted light of wooden blinds and more pineapples – real ones – atop the shiny bar, beckoning you into the fold.
Hours 6 pm to 2 am daily
Access No barrier at door, washrooms in basement
