1173 Dundas St. E (Dundas and Carlaw)
Toronto, Ontario

Toronto - Last week, me and some peeps had the chance to go grab a drink in the east end, something we don’t really do too often. Looking for a casual low key affair, we stumbled upon a hole in the wall(if that wall was an intersection kind of place) bar/lounge on the corner of Dundas and Carlaw called “Lolabar”. Seeing no other options in this industrial wasteland area, we decided to take our chances.

Beers- Two options available - Creemore and Steamwhistle. So basically, not the most diverse of drinking choices in terms of beers but really, theres a light beer and a dark beer, so it’s pretty decent. I mean, if they also had bud light, keiths, blue, 50 and stella on tap, I’d still choose between Creemore and Steamwhistle anyway. I think this place was definitely more of a mixed drinks bar, since the bar inside was just filled with hard liquor choices. However, to be consistent with the other reviews, I’ll stay with beer - so yea, there was only two choices.

Decor- This might be the only bar I’ll ever go to where the patio is bigger then space inside and clearly, the patio of Lolabar is it’s #1 selling point. It’s HUGE. However, it over looks the corner of Dundas and Carlaw, which is about as pleasant to the eye as a room with white paint and grey doors. Boring. However, if you just want to sit outside, there’s definitely space. Inside, Lolabar takes on the look of some posh richmond-spadina lounge, with a primarily red/black look focusing on sleek modernistic furniture. Quite a contrast to the neighborhood it is in. Patio gets an A though. A+ if it was in a better location.

Patrons - C’mon, this is the corner of Dundas and Carlaw - you can’t honestly be expecting people. Not a place to go to if you want to go meet random strangers.

Service - There was one person working there, and to be honest, it was a Tuesday night, so there was not a whole lot going on. We got served at decent times, the dude (probably owner) was nice enough and theres nothing much to it. It’s hard to not get service when you are one of two tables with people at the place.

Food- having played a soccer game prior, we were pretty damn hungry. Like the beer selection, the food selection at Lolabar was minimal - Pizza (pepperoni or one with everything on it) or Meat on sticks. We chose the Pepperoni pizza for 10 dollars and got an 8 inch mccains pepperoni pizza or something. I was hungry, so it tasted good, but I am pretty sure this was a straight out of the box pizza. I don’t imagine meat on the stick to be much better.

Conclusion- All was well until we got the bill. The guy charged us 22$ for pitchers. TWENTY TWO freakin dollars. That is inexcusable. Even crappy Firkin pubs only charge 18$. I honestly don’t know where they get off thinking they can charge 22$ for a pitcher of beer. Even better, they charged like 5.94$ for a pint, so ordering pints was actually cheaper then ordering a pitcher - can anyone tell me why this is? The place had a nice patio, but aside from that everything else was not great - low beer selection, low food selection, bad neighborhood - extremely high prices. I can understand that not a lot of business comes by on a Tuesday, but there is no need to punish patrons with high ass beer prices. If no one comes by on a day, just close the damn place that day and cut your losses.

To sum it up, if you like a nice patio overlooking an empty intersection and astronomical beer prices, then the Lolabar is for you.

1/5

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