WORDS BY DANI KUEPFER; PHOTOS BY CHRIS TIESSEN 

IT’S AN INCREDIBLE ACCOMPLISHMENT WHEN A RESTAURANT, BAR, OR CAFÉ REMAINS OPEN TO BUSINESS FOR OVER A DECADE, TWO DECADES, THREE DECADES. IT’S EVEN MORE ASTONISHING WHEN A TRIUMVIRATE OF ESTABLISHMENTS IN CLOSE PROXIMITY MANAGE TO DO IT – GAINING ALMOST MYTHICAL STATUS TOGETHER AS NEIGHBOURHOOD STAPLES AND HELPING TO DEFINE AN ENTIRE COMMUNITY. IN UPTOWN WATERLOO A THREESOME OF ‘GOLDEN GIRLS’ – ETHEL, JANE, AND THE PRINCESS – HAVE ACHIEVED JUST THIS FEAT. COME JOIN ME ON A WEE BAR HOPPING TOUR. 

ETHEL’S LOUNGE 
114 KING STREET NORTH
ETHELSLOUNGE.COM, @ETHELSLOUNGE 

Imagine a neon sign blending into the landscape after it’s been peeking out over King Street like a friendly wave for three decades. ‘We’ve become part of the woodwork,’ Glenn, owner of Ethel’s Lounge (and its iconic neon sign), tells me. Ethel’s has been widely adored for decades as a diner whose décor reminds me of both my grandmother’s eat-in kitchen and a beach bar in Aruba. Vintage metal signs, framed portraits of old-time Hollywood starlets, and band posters (advertising shows like The Bee Gees and Cat Stevens at the University of Waterloo) are tessellated along cheery yellow walls. Chrome and formica kitchen tables and their mismatched chairs are filled with students, work wives, and old boys alike, enjoying crispy pints, nachos, and chopped salads on a sunny Friday afternoon. An old wooden bar wraps around an island plastered in well-traveled bumper stickers that read ‘Don’t mess with Texas’ and ‘Eat Bertha’s Mussels’. Outside, an expansive raised patio with its own bar sits ready for warmer days. There’s a lot going on here – and I can’t get enough of it. 

So, I begin by quizzing Glenn: ‘Who is Ethel?’ Glenn tells me about his love of the blues, and of his running a blues bar in the eighties, also here, Uptown. The ‘original’ Ethel’s was a renowned blues club in Eastside Detroit, then, run by Ethel herself. When Detroit’s Ethel’s closed, Glenn salvaged the club’s neon sign, gifting the name to his own soon-to-open uptown tavern. ‘It’s quite a collection,’ I remark, eyeing the artifacts. The sign, with its tipped martini glass. The sock hop bar stools. The carved wooden macaw hanging over the beer taps. Glenn laughs, ‘We were thrifting before it was the thing to do.’ 

I flip through the menu, which ranges from classic diner plates like clubhouse sandwiches, traditional breakfasts, and mushroom swiss burgers to southwest-inspired taquitos and enchiladas. And there’s a daily special of favourites like homemade meatloaf, pulled pork, and pork ribs smoked in-house. I would be remiss not to mention Taco Tuesdays, a long-standing community favourite. 

Unlike my grandma’s kitchen, the bar is fully stocked and pouring a dozen draft beers, a mix of micro and macro brews. I order a Wellington SPA as usual and eye the Coors Light tap, thinking this would be a good place to have a beer with my dad. 

The buzz that filled the place when I first arrived begins to calm while lunch fades into the final few hours of the work week. As people leave their tables, most of them turn and bid farewell to Glenn, who seems to know everyone by name. Some of these folks have been coming for decades, bumping elbows with fellow bar flies or treating their young staff to lunch at the place where they themselves held their first job. Even some of the staff have been here for over twenty years. ‘People often ask me how I attract such a diverse crowd,’ Glenn reflects. ‘I guess once you find what you like, you stick to it.’ 

There’s not much more to it than that. Good food, good friends, and a palpable warmth. If you’ve never been to Ethel’s, head down any day of the week and you’re sure to find Glenn with a friendly hello and a lifetime of stories. (Oh, and there’s parking too – just like the good old days.) 

PRINCESS CAFÉ 
46 KING STREET NORTH
PRINCESSCAFE.CA, @THEPRINCESSCAFE 

Across the fabric of a sage green veranda, white block letters spell out the holy trinity: sandwiches, craft beer, coffee. I’ve arrived at Princess Café – an Uptown Waterloo staple located right on the main drag. The space is satisfyingly simple, the classic layout and practical furnishings perfect for quick lunches and long coffee breaks. A small counter stretching across the front window invites folks to partake in some good old-fashioned people watching. Across a foyer people work on laptops in an atrium-like space (‘The Annex’) the café shares with its namesake, the Princess Twin Cinemas, though the businesses have operated independently since Princess Café owner Marc and his wife bought the café fifteen years ago. 

The Princess Café boasts a classic, straightforward menu that really delivers, starting with the solid coffee lineup: uncomplicated lattés, london fogs, and americanos. Though I usually seek out a frothed oat milk situation, today I am content with a black coffee, which the barista hands to me in a mug featuring two kittens playing in a bed of peonies. So cute. My first sip feels so familiar, and Marc identifies the blend as Café Femenino from Guelph’s Planet Bean, which I happen to drink at home. It’s a roasty, nutty, caramel-y brew that’s grown by a co-op in Peru run by Andean indigenous women. While the café’s clientele surely drink more coffee than I ever could, Marc and I can agree that small, intentional choices in who we buy from can add up to a greater impact over time. 

But today I’m here to eat. Fast forward to me diving into ‘The Big Marc’. Shredded lettuce, crunchy onion, pickle coins, special sauce, and a sesame seed bun, all with a big melty slab of grilled halloumi. Yes, halloumi. Perfection. If you’re not a big cheese fan like me, you might love the ‘Chipwich’ (local fave Noah Martin summer sausage plus pickles, cheddar, dill mayo, and of course, chips), the classic-ish ‘Turkey’ (with smoked turkey, spinach, tomato, roasted garlic mayo, sundried tomato pesto, and goat cheese), or the ‘Curried Tuna Melt’. Whatever you get, crush it with a bowl of soup, made fresh daily. 

‘We’ve always been coffee, sandwiches, soup, and great beer,’ Marc tells me, ‘but once pandemic-era rule changes allowed beer-to-go in Ontario restaurants, we really leaned into it.’ In spring of 2020, Princess Café took its menu to the small sliding window at the front of the shop, and while folks continued to show up for their usual lunch orders, it was the beer fridge that sent the line winding down the block. The aptly named Sidewalk Beer Shop was born, and now the café’s long-standing sandwich counter is accompanied by a rotation of hundreds of Ontario’s best brews. 

It’s a pretty awesome beer selection, which can be browsed on their website but is optimally enjoyed in person, as Marc has handwritten hundreds of tags giving a quick description of each brew. The shop features Ontario-based brews (along with a handful of imported lambics) that you won’t find in the LCBO, and that will connect you to breweries like Badlands, Dominion City, Fine Balance, and Sonnen Hill without the several hours drive. Even I, who identify as a beer snob, see a ton of cans I don’t recognize. Everything is reasonably affordable (with the option to take home or crush in-house alongside your sandwich), which means they’re moving through fresh, new beers every week. 

Beer, coffee, sandwiches, soup: great provisions to accompany a trip uptown. A groovy café/bottle shop not to miss. 

JANE BOND 
5 PRINCESS STREET WEST
JANEBOND.CA, @JANEBOND_005 

On a quiet street just off King sits an unassuming saloon, its board and batten facade adorned with a woman’s silhouette and the numbers ‘005’. High contrast orange and blue walls draw me into a cozy dining room of mid-century molded chairs, pop art posters from past live gigs (designed by local graphical heroes Jon Kutt, Jon Johnson, and others), cobble- stoned floors and a tavern-style bar – all bedazzled by a disco ball throwing daylight from across the room. Out back there’s the cutest patio. This is Jane Bond: vivacious, confident, and unapologetically herself. 

‘When we opened we were entirely vegetarian,’ the eclectic tavern’s co-owner Bernard tells me, ‘decadently so.’ In fact, Jane Bond’s menu has been fully vegetarian for all of its twenty-nine years. That’s extraordinary, really. Lately, the menu is almost entirely plant based, and still made from scratch. Beyond ‘veggie’, the menu’s theme is hard to put my finger on – it’s less of a specific cuisine, and more of a vibe. Fried tofu chick’n sammies, dressed spicy and saucy or plain jane. Classic faves like the vegan caesar, smash burgers, taco salad, antojitos, and, of course, burrito-sized samosas. And weekly specials including from-scratch soups and some of the best vegan desserts in the city. It occurs to me that this is road trippin’ food! Tex-mex and American, home-cooked comfort food: a mix of nostalgia-inducing plates, done vegan. 

Plant-based folks and omnivores alike will be happily sated with huge, tasty servings made even better paired with a great pint! Seven taps pour an all-star lineup, including a pale ale from Willibald, a lager from Burdock, a pilsner from Tooth and Nail, a stout from Third Moon, and, of course, the golden child: Bellwoods’ Jutsu. And there’s more in the fridge: cans from Slake, Halo, Block 3, Godspeed, Still Fields, and Queen of Craft, plus some non-alcoholic gems. Jane Bond is no stranger to craft: co-owner Shane recounts pouring Steamwhistle, Beaus, and Wellington long before they were household names. 

Of course, Jane Bond is a great spot to order a late- night cocktail and let your hair down. (Cucumber and mint-infused Pimms Cup, anyone? Or maybe a Blue Velvet, with blue curacao, spiced liqueur, smoked vanilla and meyer lemon.) ‘Originally what we wanted was a sweet cocktail bar,’ Bernard tells me, ‘a place to hang out and listen to cool music. And then the food took off.’ 

After nearly three decades, a stellar food and drink lineup aren’t the only thing that’s remained: live music started in the late nineties and you’ll still find local bands and DJs slinging tunes every Friday and Saturday night. ‘People always know they can walk through the door and listen to fantastic music,’ Bernard beams. ‘We never charge cover, and the music is always different. We just want people to have fun and feel included.’ 

A place to eat, drink, and be yourself: that’s what Jane Bond has always been. While we chat, the tavern begins to fill with the people who make Jane Bond what it is: long-time regulars alongside new faces, vegetarians and their omnivore counterparts, folks young and old. ‘And the staff,’ Shane adds, ‘we wouldn’t be here without them. They don’t wear uniforms – they come to work as themselves. And they design the seasonal cocktails and weekly features. They make food they want to eat.’ 

‘We built a place we wanted to hang out at,’ Bernard reflects, ‘and we want everyone who comes through this door to feel as much a part of all this as we do.’