An Ode to a Lost Venue

The Dakota Tavern joins a too long list of Toronto bars where the music has died

I woke up yesterday to read that one of my all-time favourite music venues—The Dakota Tavern—is turning from a place of late-night communions between like-minded souls, fuelled by music, to yet another sports bar. I guess that’s better than another condo … for now.

Toronto musician Derek Downham offered this heartfelt ode via Facebook, announcing this sad news, with the photo below of the interior under construction; the tributes and comments kept coming throughout the day. Derek succinctly captured the impact of this day when the music officially died at 249 Ossington Avenue in Toronto and what this venue meant to so many:

The death of The Dakota Tavern represents so much more than just the loss of a great live music venue.

This is where some of Toronto's greatest bands were born and nurtured.

This is where strangers met to dance and fall in love.

This is where for many years there was a mutual respect between band, audience and staff.

Photo by: Jen Haslett

I agree with Downham’s assessment on the loss of this special music room. It follows a trend that the pandemic five years ago accelerated as real estate costs and land values continue to increase and despite the passion of these music-first entrepreneurs, they often simply can not compete with big business developers and city planners who prefer to build more towers.

I discovered The Dakota Tavern thanks to musician Luke Doucet and spent many a night in this underground cavern—the brainchild of Shawn Thomas Creamer where magic happened and friends and strangers alike communed for the love of music. Some nights I was too far gone in my drinking days and other nights was far too sober. The Dakota was also the bar where I picked up a tip from a fellow music scribe that Dundurn Press was looking for more music books and led me on my author journey to writing my first book on another one of my favourite venues: “The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern: A Complete History.”

Like Downham said in his social media lament, venues like the Dakota and the Horseshoe are where bands are born and nurtured. Talk to any artist, no matter where they are at in their artistic journey, and they will share the impact a particular venue played in their development and how these places were crucial to hone their sound and build an audience (see this piece I wrote for GRAMMY.com). Without places like The Dakota—and the people who operate them—getting noticed and making connections is a challenge.

The list of shows I saw at The Dakota Tavern are endless. I will not list them all, but a few that pop to mind are: Whitehorse, the house band (the Beauties) on Sunday nights, often with Serena Ryder showing up, the barroom poet laureate NQ Arbuckle, the Skydiggers, a James Gray tribute and the many years of grabbing a pint of Harps or tall can of Stiegl and sitting in one of the swivelling barrel chairs at the bar for all-night CMW and NXNE showcases—especially the ones hosted by Six Shooter Records.

In memory of this lost venue, I’ve reprinted this interview I conducted with Shawn Creamer more than a decade ago that tells The Dakota Tavern’s origin story.

---

Rolling the Dice

In 2004, Shawn Creamer moved to Toronto from London, Ontario to play music. “I wasn’t able to make a living at it, so I had to get my first real job,” recalls the owner of The Dakota Tavern. “I got a gig at the Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency and it ate my soul.” Every morning, Shawn took public transit to this dead-end job he loathed, catching the bus in front of a dive bar called the Trin Port. One day, while waiting for the TTC, a For Rent sign on the building caught his eye.

“It was just like out of a movie,” Shawn says. “I ripped down the sign, went home, called and quit my job, and rented the building. Then I sold my house in London and rolled the dice.”

My Barn, My Rules

That was 2006. The Dakota Tavern has since become one of the most renowned music bars in the city, hosting live music performances every night of the week. On weekends, it’s also home to Bluegrass Brunch, a family-friendly all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet served with a side of bluegrass tunes from a live band.

The basement watering hole is decorated with wood-panelled walls and a rustic, Western-themed décor. The walls are adorned with a steer head and a velvet painting of Willie Nelson and promotional posters of country legends like Buck Owens and Bill Monroe.

At the bar, patrons sit in barrel swivel chairs and choose from more than a dozen varieties of craft brews, house-made cocktails and plenty of whisky. The small kitchen serves southern pub fare and comfort foods such as Bison burgers, fried chicken, and macaroni and cheese.

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

So what inspired Shawn to roll the dice and take a gamble on the Dundas West bar all those years ago? “The barrel chairs were pretty cool,” he jokes. The real reason: he wanted a hangout for his friends and a venue for rising roots-rockers to play. “My musician friends and I would always go back to someone’s house after a night of drinking and sit around playing old Hank Williams’ and Lightnin’ Hopkins tunes,” he says. “In the living room with me sat all these great songwriters like Serena Ryder and Ron Sexsmith. I wanted to open a bar where this could happen.”

One of the first acts booked was Shawn’s band The Beauties. The musician admits he wasn’t sure anyone would come. “The first 10 Beauties shows you could have shot a cannonball through here, but because so many musicians lived in this neighborhood, it quickly became their bar. I would like to take credit for being a marketing genius, but the bar’s success really just happened around me.”

To encourage the local community to visit, The Dakota Tavern didn’t charge a cover fee for the first six months. “My contract with the neighborhood was this: You may not know the name of the band, but I promise you they don’t suck! There are a lot of terrible bands that can attract 100 people, but they don’t do anything for the story of your venue. We always treated The Dakota like it was a story.”

Behind Every Bar there’s a Story

So, what’s the story behind the name? “It’s actually a tribute to John Lennon because he lived and died at The Dakota,” Shawn says. “Also, the word Dakota didn’t pigeonhole the place…it doesn’t just say country, even though it’s a country-sounding word.”

Get a taste of what the place looked and sounded like via this clip of the Skydiggers taken from the Dakota Sessions.

Live Music Bumper Stickers Should be Issued

Just like the latest post in

Ready for Nothing

“The Pads That Built Me,” where the author John Strohm called music venues “the beating heart of music culture now and forever,” these venues are crucial to the musical ecosystem of any city. Without them—and without the people who run them and those that frequent them—live music ceases to exist. On January 30, 2025, the Canadian Live Music Association released the first-ever Economic Impact Assessment of the live music industry in Canada. In 2023 alone, live music industry operations and live music tourism combined generated $10.92 billion in GDP.

Download and read the report, titled Hear and Now. For a deep dive that examines case studies from other global cities, including London, Melbourne, Nashville, Austin and Zurich, pick up a copy of “This Must be The Place: How Music Can Make Your City Better,” written by

Shain Shapiro, PhD

and subscribe to his Substack.