The sun-bleached awning of Maria's Sports Bar is nothing new to Toronto's Brockton Village: the bar, founded by the eponymous Maria Leandro, has been holding it down in the neighbourhood for more than 30 years.

But Maria is no longer part of the business (though she still hangs out there on the regular) after offering, on a whim, to sell it to Adrian Montesdeoca, Mikey Kim and Graham Pratt, the team behind such buzzy Toronto spots as Milou and Bar Bowie.

"I had never actually come here until about a year ago, and I didn't realize how beloved it was in the neighbourhood," Head Chef Graham Pratt tells blogTO. "Maria was here every day. There was karaoke. She would give out chicken nuggets, apparently."

When Pratt visited the bar, he says, he noticed the bar's dormant wood-fired pizza oven and asked Maria if he could do a pop-up there. Instead, she asked if he'd like to just buy the business instead. So they did.

Kim, Pratt and Montesdeoca were uninterested in turning Maria's into something it wasn't, though. They clocked — correctly, in my opinion — that most of the bar's magic lay within what was already there: its kitschy, approachable atmosphere, its regulars, its neighbourhood vibe. So, instead, they streamlined and amplified it. 

"I like to think like you can't quite tell what's old and new," Pratt says, "[Adrian Montesdeoca is] really good at that."

Indeed, it's nearly impossible to tell what was there before and what's been added. Faded Nike posters, a Big Mouth Billy Bass with a dead battery and haphazardly placed bumper stickers line the walls. The letters above the beer fridge have been rearranged to read "MARIA'S SPORTS BRA."

Whatever the new owners did add, it evidently wasn't done inauthentically. The new menu is just a further testament to that.

"The menu is really straight to the point. Everything that people know and love, just really well made," Montesdecoa tells blogTO. "We didn't want to challenge anyone with anything."

And so, the menu was populated with the most crowd-pleasing picks that the team could possibly think of: deep-fried appetizers, baked pastas, and, of course, wood-fired pizzas made in the oven that started it all.

Marks of the team's attention to quality are evident throughout, however low-brow the menu offerings may seem on first glance. The fried calamari ($19), for example, is supremely tender and cut into great, hearty hunks, prime for dipping in the cup of marinara that accompanies it.

The baked mac & cheese ($15) is a similarly simple-seeming dish that proves itself an unexpected standout. Offering lengthy cheese pulls, even long after our photo session rendered it room temperature, the rich sauce hints at more mature cheeses in the mix.

Sometimes it's a good idea to mix in a vegetable, and the taco salad ($15), one of just two salads on the menu alongside a Caesar, does the job with crisp romaine lettuce, pico de gallo and corn, plus enough sour cream, creamy chipotle sauce, cheese and mini Doritos to un-healthify it. I say that in only the most complimentary way.

Of course, the pizzas are not to be missed. Had Pratt succeeded in launching a pizza pop-up out of Maria's instead of taking over the whole bar, it likely wouldn't have been long before Maria got so fed up with the people banging down her door to get a slice that she handed the business over to him anyway.

All the old standards are there, served on supremely thin, supple crust, but a few more unique offerings still managed to slip through the cracks. The K-Town ($23), for example, is a Korean-inspired pie with Spam, kimchi and scallions.

That said, if you opted for a humble pepperoni ($22), you would not be making a mistake.

In keeping with the bar's divey origins, cocktails and beers are offered at almost unimaginably fair prices. Rhum Punch is served with a hefty pour for just $16.

Oh, and I'd be remiss not to mention the bar's unparalleled "Happy Hour," which runs from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. 2-for-1 beers. If you made it this far into the article, you deserve that little gem. 

And funnily enough, little gem is exactly what I'd use to describe Maria's Sports Bar in general. Nothing flashy, nothing ostentacious, but my oh my does it ever shine.

Maria's Sports Bar is located at 1135 College St.