The Gladstone Contest: Other Reasons 1889 Rocked

The Gladstone Hotel prides itself on notable achievements across a number of fronts. And we’re talking about some pretty cool stuff here, not just manufactured superlatives, like the restaurant professing to serve the “world’s best hog maw” or the pub with the “city’s comfiest bar stools.” 

Consider, for one, that the Gladstone’s Melody Bar was named among the top 10 bars in the world by the Condé Nast Traveler Readers’ Choice Awards. No small potatoes, that. 

Nor is the one about the Gladstone being the oldest continuously operating hotel in the city. That’s a pretty nifty claim to fame to bandy about with your buds. 

Or that it was one of the first 10 hotels in the province to be granted permission to allow its patrons to drink and play shuffleboard in a licensed alcoholic area, at one time even skirting the municipal imperative that all beverage rooms had to close between 6:30 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. That’s got to have been a heady period for liquor-lovin’ shuffleboard enthusiasts.

Hell, at one time, this hippy-chic Queen West institution enjoyed the considerable distinction of being the last watering hole where a westward-bound citizen could score himself some booze before reaching Hamilton.

Given this collection of extraordinary accomplishments, and its rich and storied heritage, the Gladstone is putting up a $40 gift certificate for a meal at the Melody Bar for whoever can produce the best, most comprehensive, most colourful list of other Toronto superlatives from the same year the Gladstone was born: 1889. Think 1889’s first, fastest, highest, brightest, etc.

Why not take pad and pen in hand and stop by the institution in question for a Portobello cheeseburger while you consider your options.

Submissions (including e-mail address and phone number, and delivered to TK) must be received by November 30, and the winner will be revealed in our mid-December blog.