Toronto Star
A self-dubbed "Breakfast Club" that has made Bregman's Bakery and Restaurant their favourite haunt for decades may be sorely disappointed their favourite spot is closing down after 28 years, but that doesn't mean they're going to stop meeting.
It just means a bit of old-fashioned activism has to be employed. They're working on convincing another St. Clair and Yonge restaurant to open a little earlier for them on Saturdays.
"We're lobbying Passione. We're not giving up," says Arthur Johnson, 79, who has been coming to Bregman's since it first opened. He barely gets out of his coat before a glass of orange juice is placed in front of him and he doesn't have to tell the waiter what he wants to eat.
"He has his own dish," says fellow breakfaster Gigi Page, 67. "It's Eggs Benedict, but scrambled instead of poached."
Page, who's "semi-retired from the CBC," arrived earlier yesterday with lawyer Harry Riva, 68, and immediately started chatting with Heather Wills, 61, a retiree from Swiss Re, a re-insurance company. First topic of conversation? Where's Arthur?
Arthur shows up a few minutes later and is greeted heartily.
But others are missing today. "Where are Arnold and Muriel?" "And Stephan and Nerida?"
Bregman's Bakery and Restaurant is closing Jan. 31. A victim of carbohydrate-aversion, condo-ization (which means people with dogs rather than families), the closing of a couple of area movie theatres and, by Wills's count, "two Second Cups, two Starbucks, two Timothy's and one Tim Hortons," Bregman's is going the way of Fran's and Shopsy's, two other recently deceased neighbourhood eateries.
In its place will open a Swiss Chalet. (According to the chain's website, it will be the 15th downtown Toronto Swiss Chalet.)
As Bregman's manager Kesooni Simpson told the Star's Dana Flavelle last week: "When the condos behind us went up, we thought, great. But it did absolutely nothing for us. The owners tried everything. Nothing worked."
Gord Cochrane, 48 and a CBC employee, has been going to Bregman's for three or four years. He sits a couple of tables down from the "Club."
"On Saturdays I have a toasted western and on Sundays I have waffles. It's the same thing every weekend. It's strange. The neighbourhood has changed enormously since we moved in 13 years ago. There were two theatres, countless places to go for breakfast, there used to be a bookstore where the new condo is down the street and it's gone as well. I don't know what to make of it. Business is obviously tough these days and neighbourhoods evolve."
Riva seems philosophical. The closing of a restaurant in which he's never "sent a dish back in 20 years" is "obviously a disappointment. One has to alter one's plans and that's not necessarily easy to do, as one gets older." But he acknowledges that, "they just haven't been able to increase customers," and that "things do change."
Asked for highlights from the years of hanging out together, Page mentions meeting former Olympic skater Elvis Stojko.
"We talked to him, shook hands with him," but also the simple pleasures of just observing life unfold in the restaurant. "We saw a young couple starting to come in together and then we saw them with their first child, their second, their third, their fourth."
Adds Wills: "They started coming in 16 years ago."
Johnson, a retired civil servant and the "chairman of the group," talks about getting to know philanthropist and fellow Bregman's fan Joey Tanenbaum and how the group was invited to the celebration when Tanenbaum received an honorary university degree. "It was at the Ontario Club. It was the first time I had been there."
And soon it will be the last time he'll eat at Bregman's. So, are the rumours about Passione Ristorante picking up the slack to be believed?
Tony Agolli, who's been the owner of that restaurant just south of St. Clair for seven years, says he's happy to help the Breakfast Club.
"Yes, I'm going to open earlier for them. It's neighbourhood people and some of them I know already."
Agolli promises he'll open at 8 a.m. and perhaps even earlier. "We help them, and at the same time they help us."
Back at Bregman's, Johnson's coffee has arrived without prompting.
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