Best of Toronto
The Best Cheap Drinks in Toronto
The best cheap drinks in Toronto, not surprisingly, are not going to be found in the swankiest of places. That being said, I think swankiness is overrated. Sure it's great once in a while to get all dolled up in the Friday night version of your Sunday best, but most of the time I'd rather just find a place with little to no attitude, a fun vibe, good tunes or a jukebox that lets me decide what's good and revel in the fact that I'm paying half the price for the same drink I could get someplace else.
With DJ's, karaoke nights and even meat raffles some of the bars on this list figure out a way to stand out in the crowd while still making a $20 bill last an entire evening. Not every place is cheap all the time but pick the right night of the week and you know where to buy all your friends a round the next time you get that bonus paycheque, extra tip money or rebate from the government.
Here are the 12 best bars in Toronto to find cheap drinks as voted by readers of this site.
Bistro 422
This place deserves top of list for actually being the cheapest of the cheapies, if only by 27 cents. While the service is hit and miss, the atmosphere is always fun and the $9.73 pitchers of domestic beer (avoid the home brew though), and $11.51 mixed drink pitchers make it a great spot to pre-drink or feel like a king by buying all your broke friends a shot. More »
Sneaky Dee's
While this College street mainstay may have few drink specials, except the Wednesday night domestic bottles for $3, the rest of their drinks are inexpensive and so are their pitchers that start at $11.25 tax included. Food comes in big portions and the atmosphere is loud and fun. More »
The Rhino
As the sole Parkdale rep on the list, the Rhino represents well with tons of room for everyone, a great patio and decent food. Although drink specials are rare to non-existent, their selection of over 341 bottled beer (starting at $3.40) plus seasonal additions and 15 microbrew taps (starting at $4.52 with Guinness at $6.50 tax in) ensure that at least beer lovers are taken care of. More »
Bovine Sex Club
More of a rock club than bar, the Bovine is cheap albeit not a place to head on a Saturday afternoon. If you want loud tunes and something that has more “rock” attitude in its door handle than in the entire Tattoo Rock Parlour across the street, this is it...all at prices about 25-40% less. More »
The Emmet Ray
With a more upscale feel and nary an undergrad in site the Emmet Ray is a chic place to hang compared to most spots on this list. $1 off tall boy Sundays, $3.50 rail Tuesdays, $1 off select whiskey region Thursdays and $4.50 tax-in pints everyday til 9pm it’s a good place to relax and listen to some live music and DJs. More »
The Dog's Bollocks
A huge open space that used to house the Gypsy Co-op, this place does cheap drinks and pub grub better than most. With $10 3oz mixed drink pitchers, $10 pitchers of Canadian, $12 pitchers of Sapporo, Harp, Sleemans (or half price vs. most places) plus $3 shooters they ain’t messing around. Great wings, a stellar club sandwich, lots of TVs and 2 Karaoke nights seal the deal. More »
The Lakeview Restaurant
This 24 hour destination on Dundas West has tons of deals. Start with $3 mimosas and $4 caesars, or maybe the daily pint specials AND coming soon $8 margaritas and daiquiris plus alcoholic milkshakes and even pie-shakes (any pie they’ll make into a milkshake). More »
Squirly's
Cozy inside but with a great back patio, Squirly's has good food specials to match their inexpensive drink list. $4 lime or strawberry margarita’s on Monday, $4.50 bottles of 50 and $5.50 Irish Car Bombs everyday, $19 Sunday pitcher and pizza deal, Tuesday wing night and $6.50 food specials on Wednesday makes sure your bases for a good time are covered. More »
The Henhouse
This Dundas West local is the epitome of simplicity. While known for their chicken pot pie, nachos and brunch - those are beside the point here. It’s the $5.50 pints, $4 bottles of 50, $5 bottles of Mill St. or Creemore and a brunch with $3 bottles of 50, $4 pints, and $5 caesars, mimosas and beer-mosa’s that matter. More »
Nirvana
Part of the mini-cheap good food and drink empire that also owns the Red Room and Green Room, this eclectic space is littered with pics of Buddha and too many chandeliers to count. Cheap pitchers of beer, Martini Monday’s at $6.25 for 2 oz, Bottled Beer Wednesdays at $3.25 domestic and $3.50 imported, $3.50 rail Thursdays, and Sangria Sundays at $13.95 for a pitcher make it hard to go wrong. More »
Wide Open
Almost hidden on Spadina between Richmond and Adelaide, Wide Open is anything but. A long narrow space with zero attitude and good tunes, the food is pretty much non-existent but irrelevant. 2 for 1 Mondays, $3 Amsterdam bottle Tuesdays, $4.50 pint Wednesdays, $2 everything Thursdays between 5-8pm, $2.50 rails on Saturday and $3 rail and beer Sundays has your whole week covered! More »
The Red Light
The second outpost from some of the people who brought you Sweaty Betty’s, this place is easy to miss - even if you have the address - but worth the effort for their Sunday night $4 Tecate salt and limed cans, everyday $5 PBR tallboys, $5.50 rails, $4.50 domestic beer, $1 off Mill Street Thursdays and their Monday night meat raffle complete with $4 Molson Stock Ale. More »
Discussion
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As usual the entire list is in the west end. Hello, people life exists east of Yonge and north of Bloor.
Sorry Kev....but it doesn't.
Places like Sarnia and Chatham-Kent organized mass voting within their cities and the result was places like Vancouver, Toronto and Ottawa ending up in some of the cheapest spots while Sarnia, Windsor and I-never-heard-of-these-places before Chatham-Kent and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu.
Hardly an accurate representation of the which place is the most valuable even if it was decided upon by voting.
If the majority of BlogTO readers are located west of Yonge and South of Bloor then the voting will always reflect it. People outside of those areas will continue to get annoyed, leave the site and reduce the number of necessary votes from their regions only making the problem worse.
There are a few ways to fix this.
1) Intervention from editorial and writing staff. Take the results and use your own judgement to reorganize them in a more accurate manner. The best muffins in Toronto list was a great example of this. The writer actually went out to the highest voted places, tried the muffins and ordered the lists accordingly. The results were, not surprisingly, much different than the usual south of Bloor, west of Yonge groupings.
2) Affirmative action. Requiring some of the listed places be outside of the usual grouping. This is probably the easiest to implement, but probably the least accurate.
3) Collecting voters location during voting and applying it to the results. If 75% of voters live in Queen West and the Annex, then the results are going to unfairly skew towards places in those areas. Take those statistics and use them to skew votes back to fair levels. Create some rules, throw in some calculations and hopefully you can get results that aren't as skewed towards the same areas.
4) Combination 3 and 1. Figuring out how to calculate things based on location wouldn't be easy, so the next best thing is just find out where people live and use your best judgement as to how to adjust the results. Nice thing about this is that you can take other things into account as well. If areas get lots of votes because they are the current 'cool' area in town, if more well known places in well known areas get an unfair advantage over hidden gems, and etc.
But, I'd still put Bistro at the top. If only for the sake of my irrational emotional attachment to the place.
But what sets The Savoy apart from other $3.50 PBR joints - and there are a lot in that neighbourhood (Double Deuce, Midpoint, Sweaty Betty's, Ossington, etc.) - is the food. The quality - albeit not the inventiveness - is as good as The Drake, at half the price.
The most expensive drink on the menu is a $6.50 martini. Yeesh.
Why is it everytime I read these lists people complain about names missing or not being in their neck of the woods (ie North of 401 or east of Yonge). If you read the above sentence you'll notice these lists are done by a voting process.
As well, the martinis at nirvana are 2.5oz, not 2 as stated in the article.
As well, the martinis at nirvana are 2.5oz, not 2 as stated in the article.
i notice the vote totals aren't listed. was it like 17 votes to 14?
Reminds me of saying you were going to the BW Boutique back when Biway stores existed.
Stop bitching and talk about your favorite spots they missed in the comments. That's what it's there for.
Did they piss in your cornflakes?
Javahouse Curry Chicken was very good both times I've went.Plenty of students but no homeless poor people or mongoloids except fro Chico of course. Staff was friendly and service was quick.
The Only Cafe at Donlands and Danforth has an AMAZING beer selection and aren't super expensive.
27 Wellesley St Eaast..( just across wellesley subway station.)
Drink Specials
Monday - $11.99 Domestic Pitcher's all day
Tuesday - $4.86 (2oz) Martini's & $4.86 Creemore Pints
Wednesday -$4.86 Moosehead Pints
Thursday - $4.86 MGD Pints, $4 jager shots after 8pm.$3.50 Bar Rails all day.
Friday - $5.22 carlsberg pints & $3.50 Bar Rails
Saturday -$25 Import Buckets all day & 3.99 Caesars till 5pm.
Sunday -$12.99 Pitcher's & $20 domestic buckets