Legendary strip club rises from the ashes at new Toronto exhibit

A Toronto photographer is helping revive Zanzibar Tavern, one of the city's landmark adult entertainment destinations, through her extensive memorabilia collection, more than a year after a roaring three-alarm fire reduced parts of the building to rubble.

Simone Andrea, a dancer, artist, and former employee of the iconic strip club, is showcasing keepsakes from the ill-fated business in her exhibit, titled HOMECLUB.

Andrea has been collecting small tokens and photographing Zanzibar Tavern since 2023, long before the fire destroyed parts of the building in August 2025. She has simply hoped to preserve memories of her time at the club long after she moved on.

"To be honest, it started because I'm a hoarder, and I do collect anything I can, even if it is like business cards, receipts, any kind of little memory that I have," the film photographer tells blogTO.

"I do think that everything is temporary, and that's why I photograph every little corner of my experiences." 

Andrea admits that although she was doing the same with Zanzibar, she never thought "that the end was possible." 

Original signage from Zanzibar Tavern in Toronto. 

With more than 10,000 photos of the space, including images from her own film collection and those gathered from former colleagues, along with her boss's business card, T-shirts and other commemorative items, HOMECLUB pays tribute to Zanzibar in a way that allows the tavern to remain tangible.

"HOMECLUB lets you see and feel Zanzibar," she says.

Andrea recalls the day flames swallowed her former workplace, relaying the sense of denial she felt when the news first broke. Eventually, she had to see the damage for herself.

The exhibit displays collages of Instax images.

"I wanted to see it with my own eyes so I could know what's going on, understand it, and accept it. And then, I documented the day of the fire, too." Images of Zanzibar's final moments eventually became the closing of HOMECLUB, a collection Andrea admits "hurt everyone to see." 

Through the exhibit, Andrea hopes to honour the decades of history housed inside the 130-year-old building, paying tribute to the lives it touched and the role it played in Toronto's live music and adult entertainment scenes.

A collection of negatives, archival images, and an event ticket on display at HOMECLUB.

Talking more about what guests can find at the exhibit, Andrea recounts, "There's a matchbox from the '60s that's a really cool piece to have. There's also a broken shoe of mine that belongs to my time at Zanzibar, that I included." 

However, much of what was left in the club the night of the fire couldn't be retrieved for the exhibit, Andrea notes.

"A lot of people have a lot of stuff in their lockers there, but nobody was ever able to get anything out. The ceiling is gone. The second floor has collapsed. The sign was damaged. We couldn't enter," she says. 

Preserved memorabilia from dancers' dressing tables.

Andrea has big plans for the archival tribute beyond its run in Toronto. "I want to keep showing it to the world, bring it to different cities. They're a big entity in themselves," she says of the pieces on display.

Pieces of the legendary entertainment hotspot are available for Toronto residents to experience through HOMECLUB, now through Nov. 8, at Memento Film Club, located at 216 Ossington Ave.

"I want HOMECLUB to make people understand that sometimes we take spaces for granted, and we only realize that they're way bigger than us after they're gone," Andrea says.