The first time I ate at Cowbell was something of a watershed moment--newly emerged from a stint of my intermittent vegetarianism, I feasted on charcuterie and gave nose to tail dining a shot, and found it delicious enough to keep me chowing down on bone marrow for a good long while. So, it's with a heavy heart that I bid farewell to Mark Cutrara's Parkdale restaurant, which closed down this past Saturday.

After six years of carnivore-appropriate dishes marked by locally-sourced ingredients and expert butchery, Cutrara posted the following message on the restaurant's door:

The top 20 Toronto deadpool from 2012 just goes to show that this year was not all noodle-bar fun. Just as each year brings new culinary and retail loves, it too marks the loss of venerable (or else, predictably short-lived) institutions. This year was no exception. This is a nod to some of those we'll miss (and probably crave) the most.

The Pinball Cafe has shut its doors, a victim of the recently legislated moratorium on new restaurants and bars in Parkdale. If that sounds strange given the fact that the cafe opened back in February, one need only recall the trouble that its owners encountered with municipal by-laws shortly after it opened.

Time to toast with one final caipirinha. Caju on Queen just west of Trinity Bellwoods Park will end its 10-year run on December 22, when chef and owner Mario Cassini will cook up one last lombo and hand over his keys. The restaurateur will be headed back to Brazil, but vows to eventually return to Toronto with "new inspired ideas."

Beloved Ossington cocktail bar and restaurant Watusi will be closing its doors forever tonight--fittingly, on Halloween. To celebrate, they'll be throwing a Watusi RIP Halloween party, complete with DJ Vania, who also played when the bar first opened, an emphasis on dancing the time warp (in keeping with its '60s theme), and some free appetizers to sweeten the deal. After all, wouldn't everyone like to be a fly on the wall at their own wake?

The Toronto Women's Bookstore will close its doors (once again) on November 30th. In a heartfelt note on the bookstore's Facebook page, owner Victoria Moreno, who took over the space in August 2012, explains that she did her best to keep the shop operational, but that "book markets have changed radically in the last few years." While not a for-profit business, it sounds like there was just too much red ink on the ledger to keep the doors open. That's a profound shame given the store's history and the service it provided the community it served, which was broader that you might think (I bought many a textbook there during my grad school years).