Wanna buy a bar?
Danforth pub could be yours for $150,
Ever imagined yourself at the helm of a restaurant, swilling wine, entertaining guests, flexing your foodie side and mettle behind the stove? Now’s your chance. Ruthie Cummings, chef and owner of Das Gasthaus at 107 Danforth Ave., announced Monday she’s raffling off her three-year-old German gastropub for $150 a ticket.
The 1,200-square-foot eatery near Broadview Ave. is fully equipped, staffed, brimming with chandeliers and customers, and ramping up for a busy Oktoberfest and holiday season ahead, says Cummings.
To boot, it’s near the Don Valley Parkway and the subway.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” she says. “I think what I’ve actually built here, someone’s going to love as much as I do.”
And the odds are great.
Cummings, 46, who is moving cities in a few months to care for her octogenarian parents, is only offering 4,000 tickets — just enough (a possible $600,000) to cover her expenses. Whoever buys it will start off debt-free.
Cummings, whose passion is “paying it forward,” got the idea for the raffle online a few months ago. A Maine innkeeper made headlines after deciding to choose the next owner of her Boston-area bed and breakfast by holding an essay contest for $125 an entry.
While Cummings doesn’t want the stress of sifting through written submissions — she plans to stick her hand in a box Dec. 1 and draw a winning ticket — the whole idea struck a chord.
When she started out in the industry she struggled, she says, scrimping and saving before she had enough money to open Das Gasthaus, which means “guest house” in German. These days, it could cost even more — around $500,000 to get a foot in this city’s culinary door, she says.
With the help of a lawyer, she reworked the raffle idea to fit with Ontario’s gaming laws. She’s even timed the whole shebang to coincide with the busiest season for restaurants — so the new owners have the best possible chances of survival.
“We want to get (the new owners) off on the right foot,” she says, admitting she’s sad to leave — but, she can do it all again in the future if she wants to.
For now, she’s pushing her raffle forward with full steam.
A proud owner, Cummings boasts the space — a former hair salon which she personally renovated from top to bottom — just received its catering license and has a new room in the basement for hosting private functions.
To sweeten the deal even more, the new proprietors can take or leave anything they want, from furniture and decor — the old world European-style eatery is peppered with art painted by Cummings’ relatives — to the menu.
Recipes come from, and are inspired by, three generations of her family members, and she’s willing to give them up.
Offerings include traditional German dumplings, schnitzel — staff pound the fresh pork, which arrives daily from a local farm, by hand, she says — and slam kuchen, an unleavened flat bread pizza popular along the French-German border. She’s even offering her expertise. “It’s completely up to them,” she says. “I’m here if they need me. And if they don’t, they can take over the next day.”