For those who came of age in the early 2000s, Bier Markt on the Esplanade was the backdrop to countless memories — even some they may not fully remember. For 30 years, its walls absorbed drunken conversations, fostered boisterous laughter and nights that lingered long after last call.
Bier Markt is closing its doors, marking the end of what was once a national chain and leaving Ottawa with a single remaining outpost.
Just several days before Bier Markt officially closed its doors to the public, Prenup Pub on College Street announced its own closure, prompting questions about whether European-style beers — the specialty of both establishments — are falling out of favour in Toronto.
But industry insiders say the closures have less to do with what’s on tap and more to do with rising rents, ongoing construction and the challenge of adapting pre-pandemic business models to a post-pandemic reality. At the same time, a wave of new establishments is attempting to reinvent old models with more flexible, affordable and multi-purpose spaces.
Jordan St. John, a Toronto-based beer writer and consultant who once helped persuade Ontario’s government that grocery store beer sales would succeed, said European beers remain popular in the city, and that recent closures have little to do with shifting consumer tastes.
“The European beers are doing really well at the moment, actually,” St. John said.
Roger Mittag, another Toronto beer expert, echoed that sentiment, noting that many establishments are actively seeking to import European beers.
“We have excellent trade with Europe,” Mittag said. “I think they come in at a decent price. So I think pricing is dictating a lot of things at the moment.”
To hospitality industry observers, Bier Markt’s closure — one of several shuttered locations across the chain — appears to be a financial decision.
“The important thing to take away from Bier Markt’s closure is that that is a space on the Esplanade,” St. John said.
With the Goose Island Brewhouse — next door — also having announced its closure in December 2025, St. John suspects the decision is tied less to what’s being poured and more to what’s being charged— specifically, the “pressure of renegotiating leases” as rental costs continue to climb across the city.
Such is the case for Prenup Pub owner Atef Girgis, whose College Street location is slated for redevelopment once his lease expires.
“It wasn’t a surprise because they had a demolition permit to put in affordable housing,” Girgis said, noting that his pub is expected to close on Feb. 8. “I didn’t close because of the economic situation.”
After 12 years on College Street, Girgis has relocated the spirit of Prenup Pub to a new venue, Blessing in Disguise, at 150 John St., hoping “it will still be a home of U of T students and faculties,” similar to Prenup’s legacy.
“The beer tower came from Prenup,” Girgis said. “Some of the furniture came from Prenup.”
With another bar, Make Ends Meet, having launched just a few months ago — in addition to ownership of Sin & Redemption, Town Crier Pub and Village Idiot Pub — Girgis appears confident in the resilience of Toronto’s hospitality industry, even as operators continue to navigate rising costs and redevelopment pressures.
Still, he acknowledged the difficulties of keeping the lights on in the modern era, telling the Star that “business has dropped dramatically since COVID-19.”
“I don’t think it’s gonna recover or get to that point (it used to be) anymore,” he said, adding that the younger generation “aren’t drinking as much”.
“It’s a different time,” he said.
So what does it take to run a successful restaurant in Toronto in 2026?
With drills buzzing in the background as construction continued on their new restaurant, Cafe Gigi/The Dirty Laundry, co-owners Robin Goodfellow and Aldo Pescatore-Tardioli spoke to the Star about how the post-pandemic landscape has forced restaurants to rethink what success looks like.
“You can’t fight the tide,” Goodfellow said. “I owned a bunch of places pre-pandemic, and we were met with adversity that no one in 100 years had dealt with. I personally lost over a million dollars because we designed and created spaces without a pandemic in mind.”
Those losses, he said, reshaped how he now approaches hospitality. Cafe Gigi/The Dirty Laundry, currently under construction, is being built with those hard lessons at the forefront.
That shift includes rethinking profit margins — something long-standing establishments often struggle to do because of fixed realities such as space constraints, size and legacy business models.
“We’ve reverse engineered it from ‘how can we make people afford it today?’, and not ‘how can we make as much money as possible,’” Goodfellow said.
Located in the former home of beloved Queen West speakeasy Cold Tea, which closed last fall, Goodfellow said the new establishment is “something Toronto needs right now” amid a wave of bar and restaurant closures across the city.
“There’s a lot of places that I love, places I used to go to two to three times a week in 2019, that I cannot afford to go to anymore because they established their image based on pre-pandemic existence,” Goodfellow said. “They’re having a more difficult time adjusting.”
For Goodfellow, part of the challenge facing modern hospitality lies in leadership itself. He suggests the success of today’s restaurants may depend more heavily on owners being present and actively involved in day-to-day operations, questioning whether bars can thrive without truly “hands-on” management which in turn saves costs.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But that’s my opinion.”
One of the key ingredients to success, however, according to Pescatore-Tardioli, is giving people a compelling reason to leave their homes.
With Torontonians eating out less frequently in the post-pandemic era, he said programming has become increasingly important to a restaurant’s survival — whether that means offering different experiences throughout the day, hosting events, or giving a space multiple identities beyond the traditional dinner-and-drinks model.
“Opening just a new cocktail bar… I don’t know if that’s enough,” Pescatore-Tardioli said.
Expected to launch in March, Gigi’s Cafe and The Dirty Laundry will operate as two distinct venues within a single space, though not tied together “apart from the fact that they’re in the same building”.
The approach reflects broader changes in the hospitality industry since the pandemic, a period Goodfellow describes as one where operators previously felt they “could kind of do no wrong” as customers were eager simply to go out.
“Programming is what every bar used to need,” Goodfellow added. “And now the programming has come full circle.”
As restaurants increasingly have to entice people back into dining rooms and bars, industry observers say strong food, cocktails and service are now baseline expectations rather than defining features. What once made a venue a “cool hipster” destination is no longer enough.
“I think we’re returning to a place where running a bar is more of an art,” Goodfellow said.
