In February 2013 we heard about Hitch, a bar named after Christopher Hitchens that had just opened its doors in Toronto.
By the end of last week, Hitch announced it’s closing down just after its seven-year anniversary:
It was seven years ago today that we first opened our doors. Seven years ago today that we first poured you a drink. Seven years ago today that we started down the path of becoming ‘your cozy little local.’ So it only seems fitting, albeit bittersweet, to choose this auspicious day to announce that our time here together is winding down.
Sadly, on February 15th, we will be serving our last and then closing our doors.
The time we’ve spent travelling this path has been nothing short of incredible and the friends we’ve made along the way are the kind you keep for a lifetime. We built and named this bar ‘Hitch’ with the spirit of the interminably caustic Christopher Hitchens in mind, but any further reverent intentions quickly became unnecessary as the bar instead filled with the people who made it what it really was.
Thank you, all of you, for being such an integral part of what this place was, what this place is. Thank you to the incredible staff who have stood behind that bar over the years, who have slung drinks, pulled pints, spun tunes, played movies, cultivated plant life, and have even been known to dance and/or sing on the tables (you know who you are). You really are the heart and the soul of this place. Without you, Hitch would never have become what it is. And thank you to all the regulars, irregulars, occasional visitors, and one-timers who stood on the other side of the bar, sat at the roll-up window, sunbathed on the patio, and yes, who have also been known to have danced on the tables from time to time as well (you also know who you are). You were, and are, the reason we did this.
I hope you’ll join us over the next couple weeks, for one last drink, and to say a proper good-bye.
At least until we meet again on the other side of the bar.
How sad — it looks like it was a really fun place!
I have no idea why the bar is closing, and even though it could be happening for a whole host of reasons, I can’t help but think that the short existence of the bar serves as an analogy of the moment we are going through: while the bar named after Hitchens closes its doors, the world around it is dismantling everything that he defended in his life and his works.
How depressingly fitting…
(pic: HitchLimited Facebook)
