When Grizzly Bar opens subsequent week in Toronto, diners may have little doubt about the place its homeowners’ allegiances lie within the commerce conflict between Canada and the U.S.
Maple leaves and animatronic bears will set the temper. Clients will be capable of order Montreal smoked meat, calamari from the Maritimes or Caesars topped with ketchup chips in mini paper boats.
They’ll all be paid for by money, card or the nation’s different favorite forex, Canadian Tire cash.
Co-owner Jessica Langer Kapalka poses for a portrait at Grizzly Bar, a brand new Canadiana-themed bar in Toronto, Saturday, April 5, 2025.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Giordano Ciampini
For leisure, Blue Rodeo, Rush and Loverboy will probably be on heavy rotation and a “Hoser Olympics” will see prospects face off in a collection of challenges just like the “loonie toss,” “hockey tape escape” and “sorry-not-sorry” Canadian apology competitors.
“It’s going to be wild how a lot stuff there may be,” stated co-owner Jessica Langer Kapalka, who additionally plans to decorate the bar supervisor in a nine-foot, inflatable grizzly bear costume and arrange tents providing a campfire-like expertise with s’mores.
Grizzly Bar’s in-your-face strategy is among the methods Canadian eating places are responding to the tariff tensions which have engulfed North America and threatened to upend meals provide chains and eating out budgets.
The principle bar is proven at Grizzly Bar, a brand new Canadiana-themed bar in Toronto, Saturday, April 5, 2025.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Giordano Ciampini
As U.S. President Donald Trump continues to antagonize his nation’s closest ally with duties on all the things from vehicles to kitchen cabinet staples, Canadian eating places have swapped U.S. substances for home ones.
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Some have revamped menus, ditching the Philly cheesesteak and changing Americanos with Canadianos, whereas others are holding again on U.S. enlargement plans.
The various approaches replicate the truth that each institution has needed to discover its personal approach to stability its Canadian delight with the preferences of its buyer base and the realities of pricing pressures, stated Jo-Ann McArthur, president at Toronto promoting company Nourish Meals Advertising.
“You don’t must go all the best way to altering your decor and altering your complete menu,” she stated.
“It’s about supporting your native producers the place you may.”
But some, like James McInnes, are eager to take the difficulty even additional.
His vegan fast-food chain Odd Burger Corp. paused its plan to open 60 franchises within the U.S. simply two weeks after asserting the enlargement in March.
McInnes made the choice as a result of he feared “escalating political tensions” had made the economics of the plan an excessive amount of for his London, Ont.-based enterprise to abdomen.
“Not solely are the tariff percentages altering every day, but additionally what’s getting tariffed is altering regularly,” McInnes defined.
“How do you formulate pricing for franchisees once you don’t know what lots of the prices will probably be?”
Somewhat than get caught up within the confusion, Odd Burger determined to remain targeted on its Canadian operations and suppose extra intently about what it could actually do to insulate its provide chain from the U.S.
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“If there’s a 200 per cent tariff placed on Coke, we don’t know what that may appear like,” he stated. “We’re exposing ourselves to numerous threat and at a sure level, it simply doesn’t make monetary sense to hold U.S. merchandise.”
At Kanoo Espresso, it was patriotism quite than costs that obtained co-owner Steve Neville to make its menu unabashedly Canadian.
When the Guelph, Ont., café opened final 12 months, the plan was to convey prospects a style of the world’s greatest coffees, so it cycled by way of worldwide brews till the tariff spat satisfied Neville to make Canadian espresso the star.
“We realized it’s been a no brainer all alongside,” he stated.
Kanoo’s choices now come from Subtext Espresso Roasters in Toronto, September Espresso Co. in Ottawa, Phil & Sebastian in Calgary and Visitors Espresso Co. in Montreal.
“Being on this globalized world, we’ve type of overpassed a few of these home priorities (like) supporting native companies, native households … and that’s beginning to break down,” Neville stated. “In order that’s type of just like the silver lining to all this.”
Grizzly Bar is equally proud will probably be in a position to put the highlight on Canada.
The corporate discovered the fixings for menu highlights like poutine, rooster wings and bison burgers at residence.
“I used to be anticipating it to be much more troublesome in some methods to supply nearly all of our meals gadgets from Canada, but it surely hasn’t been that troublesome in any respect,” Langer Kapalka stated.
Within the few instances when one thing can’t be sourced from Canada, the enterprise turns to allies.
That’s why New Zealand elk and Mexican fruit and greens make the menu and the animatronic bears come from the Philippines.
Requested how a lot she and Jason Kapalka, her enterprise and life accomplice, spent on the endeavour, she stated, “want I knew!”
The couple’s funds is as much as $15,000 however they lowered bills by getting mates to scour “wood-panelled basements” for eccentric decor they may borrow.
The entire preparations occurred in the previous couple of weeks after the couple settled on remodeling Offworld Bar, a eating institution they run that rotates by way of totally different themes, right into a Canadian paradise.
The seashore type pop-up Grizzly Bar will supplant lasted about two months. The Canadian theme will probably stick round longer.
Kapalka jokes about operating it till 2028, when the U.S. will elect its subsequent president, however hopes the political tide will render it pointless even sooner.
“Hopefully, there’ll be a special regime at some stage there,” he stated. “I’d stay up for switching it off, if there’s now not a necessity for it.”
