What Happened to College Street Bar After Restaurant Makeover?

College Street Bar was a bar on College Street near Bathurst Street in Toronto's Little Italy, according to Global News in May 2017. Its episode of Restaurant Makeover, a series on Food Network Canada and HGTV Canada, aired on October 17, 2005, as the third episode of the second season. Rotten Tomatoes' season listing describes the project as reinventing the bar while satisfying the wishes of both owners. That one line is the only description of the episode found: nothing read says what problems the bar had, what the chef and designer changed in the menu, decor or staffing, or how the relaunch went.

The series paired a chef with a designer to rebuild a restaurant on a small budget and a tight schedule, and TVmaze's listing for the show says the owners put up half of the funding. Wikipedia's list of renovated restaurants marks the bar as no longer open and adds no note about what followed.

The later history comes from two 2017 news items. Global News reported on May 12, 2017 that a City of Toronto spokesperson said the bar was sold on April 28, while adding that the sale had not yet been completed; the report did not name the buyer. BlogTO reported in September 2017, according to its web address, that the Little Italy venue was being turned into Mrs. Robinson, a cocktail bar with a strong focus on live music, created by the team behind The Addisons Residence and The Good Son. The post said the original bar had closed earlier in the year, that the new venue would also serve food without being billed as a restaurant, and that a launch party was planned for November.

The two reports describe the bar of the same name on College Street, and neither mentions the television episode. A new name and a new concept, a live-music cocktail bar run by a different team, replaced the College Street Bar according to BlogTO.