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Carmen's Steakhouse is back

harry_fine

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I used to go there 30 years ago, my parents also. Great steaks but you had to love garlic. The great pickles and cottage cheese brings back memories.

Used to be Carmen's Club, got some sort of club license so they could get around Toronto's 8th Sunday opening laws. Carmen was there every night.

Closed a long time ago, maybe 15 years. On Alexander near the old Maple Leaf Gardens. Heard a radio ad this week that it was open so walked by it today. Sure enough the big old house is now Carmen's again.

Anyone know what happened, what the use of space had been all this time and why it's back?
 
I used to go there 30 years ago, my parents also. Great steaks but you had to love garlic. The great pickles and cottage cheese brings back memories.

Used to be Carmen's Club, got some sort of club license so they could get around Toronto's 8th Sunday opening laws. Carmen was there every night.

Closed a long time ago, maybe 15 years. On Alexander near the old Maple Leaf Gardens. Heard a radio ad this week that it was open so walked by it today. Sure enough the big old house is now Carmen's again.

Anyone know what happened, what the use of space had been all this time and why it's back?

Carmen's closed 5 years ago and has sat empty ever since. Glad to have it back. The smell of garlic, burning cow and the linden trees in bloom on Alexander Street was indeed a heady mix on those warm June nights. If I'm not mistaken (and I might very well be) the house was originally the residence of Alexander Wood. At least, that is what I was told many years ago.
 
I used to go there 30 years ago, my parents also. Great steaks but you had to love garlic. The great pickles and cottage cheese brings back memories.

Used to be Carmen's Club, got some sort of club license so they could get around Toronto's 8th Sunday opening laws. Carmen was there every night.

Closed a long time ago, maybe 15 years. On Alexander near the old Maple Leaf Gardens. Heard a radio ad this week that it was open so walked by it today. Sure enough the big old house is now Carmen's again.

Anyone know what happened, what the use of space had been all this time and why it's back?

i was in tonight. it opened about 3 weeks ago in the same spot with different owners but supposedly the same style etc. web site is carmenssteakhouse.com
 
i was in tonight. it opened about 3 weeks ago in the same spot with different owners but supposedly the same style etc. web site is carmenssteakhouse.com

I am glad it's back. I'm not an expert on beef, but was there no local product, or even Canadian product available? It's a pretty strong marketing point these days to highlight local or regional ingredients, yet the menu says all their beef comes from Wyoming. I would have just left that off. Reading that it's "naturally raised" is also odd, as what does that even mean?

Also one other pet peeve of mine: why do so many restaurants have such bad websites? This one isn't the worst I have seen, though it has many of the common problems: pictures that are not sized/formatted correctly, spelling errors on the menu, and the contact page has a weirdly place Google maps insert. Pay someone to do it professionally. It's not expensive!
 
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Naturally raised just means that the cows were not fed any hormones, antibiotics or animal by-products. It doesn't mean that they are grass fed or anything like that, which although perhaps more 'natural' does not result in the nicely marbled steak we expect in a fancy steakhouse. Additionally, there's simply more high quality US beef available for sale relative to Canadian supplies, and from what I've heard it's also easier to get the longer term dry-aged beef from US suppliers than from Canadian farmers.
 

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