RIVOLI REBORN
A trio of young entrepreneurs is pouring their energy into updating the Queen St. W. venue,
One of Toronto’s iconic venues is now owned by three people not yet born when it opened in 1982.
The Rivoli Pool Hall, a Queen St. W. staple, is perhaps no longer on the cutting edge of the city’s indie music, comedy, culinary and general hangout scene. That may change with young entrepreneurs Sarah Henning, Jessica McHardy and Jenna Wood at the helm.
The venue, which features a bar, restaurant, stage and third-floor pool hall/event space, was originally launched by business partners Andre Rosenbaum, David Stearn, Kelly St. John and Jeffrey Strasburg, who also own Queen Mother Café just down the street.
In the spring of 2014, the owners began plotting a semi-retirement. They’d keep Queen Mother, but would sell their larger and more complex business.
Henning had been working for the owners for a decade. She started at 19 and put herself through the fashion program at Ryerson University. After graduation, she got increasingly involved at the Rivoli and had been promoted to general manager. “I bugged them all the time to teach me about the business,” she recalls.
The four partners sat down and offered Henning the opportunity to buy them out — at a more reasonable price than they’d get on the open market. They wanted a buyer who’d keep the name, general concept and staff. After the meeting, she walked down the street to run the lunch service at Queen Mother Café, and rang up McHardy, a George Brown culinary program grad who was cooking at the Federal.
The two knew each other growing up in London, Ont., and had already talked about going into business together. “We can do this,” Henning told her friend.
“It’s too big,” McHardy replied — their entrepreneurial dreams were more about a tiny café, not a twostorey venue. But McHardy called back later, saying “It just seemed like an opportunity too good to pass up.”
The key was a third partner. That came in the form of Wood, an acquaintance of McHardy with a background in marketing and design. She heard about the deal and offered to join in. The three sat down over Cokes and poutine and “all fell in love and agreed to do it,” Wood said. She would act as the “brains” of the operation, dealing with the paperwork. McHardy, obviously, would tackle the kitchen. Henning was anointed “queen schmooze” and would run daily operations.
They quickly inked a deal with the previous owners that fall and quietly took over ownership. Ever since, the trio has been making gradual changes. That included repainting the entire place over a 24-hour period when it was closed for Labour Day in 2014. “It needed to happen,” Henning said.
The stage in the back room got a facelift, as did that room’s back wall. The iconic Rivoli sign, which was created by Mary Margaret O’Hara, got repainted with some minor changes. They recovered the pool tables upstairs and gussied up the front patio.
McHardy, meanwhile, set to the delicate task of tweaking the menu. She upgraded the burger, added an on-trend kale Caesar salad and changed the fries. As for the enduringly popular pad Thai, “we did not touch that,” McHardy confirmed.