Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - The Purple Onion: Toronto Mike'd #813

Episode Date: March 5, 2021

Mike chats with The Purple Onion co-founder Barry Witkin about operating The Purple Onion Coffee House at 35 Avenue Road from 1960 to 1965, Buffy Sainte Marie writing Universal Soldier there, the other folk musicians who played, from Joni Mitchell to Gordon Lightfoot, his desire for a Yorkville Village museum to be incorporated in the mixed-use development slated to go on the corner of Avenue Road and Yorkville Avenue and his new job driving the StickerYou Mobile. He's joined by his very proud son Andrew Witkin, founder of StickerYou.

Welcome to episode 813 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. CDN Technologies, your outsourced IT department. Contact Barb. She's Barb at cdntechnologies.com. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. StickerU.com. Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals for your home and your business. Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. And Mike Majeski, or as I call him, Mimico Mike.

He's the real estate agent who's ripping up the Mimico real estate scene. Learn more at realestatelove.ca. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me this week is one of the founders of the Purple Onion Coffeehouse, Barry Witkin. Welcome, Barry. Hi, Mike. How are you? What a pleasure it is to meet you. Thank you. And joining us for this special episode in which we'll dive deep into the Purple Onion Coffeehouse, I have so many questions, is your son, founder of StickerU, Andrew Witkin.

Hello, Andrew. Hello, Mike. Very good to be back here, especially with my dad. Well, my first question for your dad, Barry, is, Barry, did you ever listen to your son Andrew kick out the jams on Toronto Mic'd? No, I'm afraid I haven't. Andrew, we got to fix that. We got to get him the link to that. It's true.

It's probably because of my taste in music more than anything else. That's possible. My goodness. I have a couple of questions off the top before we get into the purple onion here. One is from a gentleman named David who wrote me, and this is for you, Barry. Ask him if he remembers a red double bass that used to be at the front door. My father-in-law says he bought it from him. He still has the bass.

It isn't red anymore do you have any memory of this red double bass uh that used to be at the front door at the front door yeah i guess of the uh the purple onion this guy seems to think that you sold his father-in-law a guitar no no that wouldn't have been me. Absolutely not. Oh, that's funny. And just one more note here before we dive in. Stephen in Niagara, he wrote in to say that his addiction to caffeine started in earnest at the Purple Onion. He's unsure why it started there, but that's where it began and that he used to fill his thermos there before heading over to Robarts, the library at U of T. So you've caused more than a few people, I think, to have a caffeine addiction. Oh, I feel bad. And he still has it.

Yeah, yes, he still has it for sure. Okay, so a little context for this episode is that very recently I had a gentleman on this program named Johnny Dovercourt. that very recently I had a gentleman on this program named Johnny Dovercourt. And Johnny has these fantastic walking tours of Toronto music venues, like past and present. And I had him on and we literally walked the streets. Like we did the Yonge Street Walk and then at some point we headed over to Yorkville. And some of the venues in Yorkville that we talked about are the House of Hamburg,

the Miner Bird, the Penny Farthing, the Riverboat Coffee House, the New Gate of Cleve, I guess is the name, the Half Beat. Yeah. And the 71 Club is there, El Patio, and the Purple Onion. So this episode was pretty recent. And then I read in the Toronto Star that Barry Witkin is a founder of the Purple Onion. And I realized, oh my goodness, what a small world. That Barry Witkin is the father of FOTM Andrew Witkin.

And then it all came together so quickly. And I'm so glad we can kind of do this Purple Onion Coffeehouse deep dive here. So that's fantastic. Great. So tell us the origin story. The Purple Onion Coffeehouse is 35 Avenue Road in the Yorkville neighborhood. Tell us how that came to be. Give us the origin story.

came to be like give us the origin story well it came to be because myself and my partners al lastman and sam goodmaker primarily we were always interested in folk music we used to go to a place called of hootenannies at that time. Right. And we were all in studying for accounting. We were in our first or second year of accounting. And we just thought, you know what, as a nice diversity to accounting, maybe we should start a club, a coffee house. And we happened to see this property at 35 Avenue Road that had been vacant. The whole building had been vacant for six months.

the whole building had been vacant for six months. And so I said, you know what, let me call who the owner is and see what we can do. Turns out that the owner was the owner of Scott Mission. Yes. Okay. On Spadina. Right.

Reverend Zeidman. And so I contacted him and told him what we had in mind. He said, well, I'd rent it to you, but you've got to take the whole building because there's three floors and we would have only wanted the first floor in the basement. So we discussed it and said, okay, but here's our position. We'll take it for six months with an option for five years because we didn't have a clue how this was going to work out. We were just going by the seat of our pants. And he agreed because I think he just felt, Jesus, something's better than nothing. And that's how it came about. because I think he just felt, Jesus, something's better than nothing. And that's how it came about.

The name Al Lastman, I have to ask, relation to Mel Lastman? Yeah, it's his brother. Wild. That's wild. Yeah, that's Al. Al and myself and Sam have been friends ever since high school. So we go back a long time. So I know their family very well. Do you want to shout out since high school. So we go back a long time. So I know their family very well. Do you want to shout out the high school? Vaughan Road Collegiate.

Okay, because you know what happens. Once you shout out a high school, everybody who went there gets excited. You know that feeling? Like when someone's like, I went to your high school and you're like, oh my God, I went there too. I see, okay.

And is it 1960? Is that when this opens, the the purple yes yeah it opened in the fall of 1960 and like i say we really didn't know what we were doing we got all our friends and family to sort of help us we threw in some money because we had like a little small investment club and we took the money from that and we said, OK, we'll use it towards, you know, building our club. Right. And and that's what we did. And we had to come up with a name. And one of our friends said, you know, there's this place in San Francisco that's quite known called the Purple Onion. And we laughed at it because it was such a funny name. You know, in those days, those type of names were unusual. But the more we thought about it, the more we said, you know what, let's do it. And so we called it the Purple Onion and went on from there.

Did you always have live music at the Purple Onion? Yes. Yeah, it was always live music. We weren't sure what type of music we could introduce, but it really came down to the fact that if we had jazz, that would probably meet three or four people, and that was going to be expensive. So we concluded that folk

music, we could, that we could afford because it's usually only one person or maybe a comedian, you know, and so we started that way but, you know, in time we had certain groups come and play and certain groups come and play and gordon lightfoot came and but he was he had a partner terry whalen and they played our club the two tones uh pardon the two tones the two tones yeah and they were really good okay they i think they were playing at some of the bars on out in the Danforth or something before that. But eventually, Gord came to us and said, Terry decided he didn't want to continue. I think maybe he was starting a family or whatever. And he was a stockbroker at the time. So Gord said, look, I'm going to go it alone.

Is that okay? I said, yeah, for sure. Rest was history. I love the name, so don't be shy with the name dropping. So Gordon Lightfoot, already that's amazing that Gordon kind of starts with the two tones and then he goes solo at the Purple Onion. What are some other big names from this folk music scene that played the Purple Onion? Oh, boy.

Judy Collins, Buffy St. Marie. Wow. scene that played the purple onion oh boy judy collins buffy saint marie wow um excuse me uh carly simon who came with his with her sister and it was called the simon sisters um we had some singers at, um, thinking that, that I don't think anybody necessarily would recognize, but if I give you a description, uh, back in, in those days, um, it was a, an NFL football player. Okay. Okay. Rosie Greer. Oh yes. I know the name. Yeah. Okay. Rosie Greer. Oh, yes. I know the name. Yeah.

Remember that? Rosie Greer? Yeah, absolutely. And so we found out through his agent that he was available. And who knew that he could sing? Wow. He's like 6'8", big guy. Sure.

So he came. Big guy. Sure. So he came, and the most interesting thing that happened was that they always do three sets. And the basement was where they would hang out between sets. And one day I went down to tell him he has to go back on, And I see he's knitting. And I'm thinking, what the heck is he doing?

And apparently this was a big hobby of his and he actually wrote a book about it. So that blew me away. Absolutely blew me away. You should never judge a book by its cover. That's a lesson there. Now, I have so many fun facts I want to drop, but one is just yesterday I was recording an episode and we were actually, the theme of this episode

was songs that have lyrics that are in a language other than English. If I could speak English, this would be easier. But one of the songs that has a little bit of Spanish in it is Sweet Judy Blue Eyes by Crosby, Stills, and Nash. And the fun fact, which maybe you know, maybe you don't, is that that, I believe, is written about Judy Collins, who I think was dating Stephen Stills at the time

when Stephen Stills wrote Sweet Judy Blue Eyes for Crosby, Stills, and Nash. So there's your fun fact for the day. I don't remember that song during that time, but I think it was David Crosby came and played solo. Wow. At our club. Yeah, he played solo. Wow. At our club. Yeah, he played solo. Wow.

And he was very good, but I guess it was after that that he created the group. Right. And on from there. So, Barry, were you always a fan? Were you a fan of folk music, or was it just that happened to be the kind of music that was... No, I was a a fan of folk music or was it just that happened to be the kind of music that was no i was a big fan of it you know at that time you know peter paul and mary who we want we would have loved to have gotten but they were starting to get very popular and it was going to be too expensive so we couldn't get them and so you know initially when we opened up, we just had some local people.

Right. Not even Gord Lightfoot, but just some others. I mean, I could have gone up and sang and I had the worst voice. But people just like the environment, you know. Sure. Because it was new. We're near the University of Toronto. So we got very popular very quickly. So earlier I mentioned the map that there's a map,

map that was part of this walking tour that Johnny Dovercourt put together. And of course the two, I think the two biggest ones are probably the riverboat coffee house and the minor bird. And you always hear stories about, you'll hear about, what is it? Neil Young will play there or Jon Mitchell, or maybe even Bob Dylan. Did you just walk down the street and catch this action happening in the late 60s? What's funny, and by the way, we did have Joni Mitchell, but at that time, it was Joni Anderson.

Right. When we started in 1960, we had a coffee salesman who turned out to be Bernie Fiedler, who four years later started the Riverboat. Right. Okay. And we actually never went down there to see.'d see the signs who was coming and so on and he had he had great you know entertainers sure by that time we probably couldn't have even afforded it because he had a bigger place and so but he got the some really good talent in there. And he was, I think he was there from 1964 to like 1977. And we left Yorkville in 65 because we were all graduating and we were tired at that point.

So we sold the club, the coffee house, to this guy from New York. And he was trying to turn it into a rock and roll type of club. Right. And within a year, he forgot to renew the lease. So the landlord kicked him out. And that was the end of the Purple Onion. Maybe that's the guy who was selling that bass guitar to the earlier. Maybe.

I had no idea. So I don't know exactly when Andrew enters your life. I'm guessing, just doing some math in my head, early 70s? Yes. My wife and I got married in 63. Okay. And Andrew was born in 1970. See how good I was at that math Andrew so my question

I'm doing this math quickly you know it's my specialty so did you raise Andrew with folk music like was this would you hear you know Joni Mitchell or Neil Young or whatever in the home like was this something that he would be exposed to at a young age

I don't think so. I mean, we may have had the radio on, but if he was such a small baby, I'm not sure that he would have exactly absorbed it. So, Andrew, let's hear from you. Did you grow up enjoying folk music because of your dad having this amazing history from the Purple Onion? No, I actually think the purple onion was more uh stories that would come out in the late 80s when my dad would tell us my sister and i about

his past and we were blown away because you know i just came back from the dead you know in like buffalo and crosby stills nash and young open for them right and i'm like you know you had you know you had Stephen Stills or yeah but yeah the music was more my mom's uh symphony that what I she was a Beethoven and Mozart fan so I got exposed to that and then my dad would lip sync to like uh Tom Jones and Neil Diamond that was his big stuff that I got inspired by I guess it. It's not unusual. Sure. Now, because I've heard you kick out the jams. I didn't hear a lot of hippie, dippy, folksy stuff in the jam kicking here.

That's right. As you probably coined it, it was atmospheric music. I liked it. Actually, I've been trying to get you back for a sequel anyway. So at some point, I'm going to try to get you back here. Or even via Zoom during these troubling COVID times. But we've got to do a sequel to that. So, Barry, you mentioned Buffy St. Marie.

So you know where I'm going here. But I'm going to play a little bit of a song. So we're all going to listen to a bit of a song together. And then we're going to chat about why am I playing this song. So here's a little Buffy St. Marie. He's five foot two and he's six feet four

He fights with missiles and with spears He's only 31 and he's only 17 He's been a soldier for a thousand years He's a Catholic, a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain, a Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew. And he knows he shouldn't kill. And he knows he always will kill you for me, my friend, and me for you. And he's fighting for Canada, he's fighting for France,

he's fighting for the USA, and he's fighting for the Russians, and he's fighting for Japan, and he thinks we'll put an end to war this way. And he's fighting for democracy He's fighting for the reds He says it's for the peace of all He's the one who must decide Who's to live and who's to die

And he never sees the writing on the walls But without him, how would Hitler have condemned him at Dachau? Without him, Caesar would have stood alone He's the one who gives his body as a weapon to the war And without him, all his killing can't go on He's the universal soldier And he really is to blame But his orders come from far away no more

They come from him and you and me And brothers can't you see This is not the way we put an end to war You know, I fully intended to fade it out and then I realized I can't. I need to finish this song. So, wow, okay. Yeah.

Takes me back. You know what? That's an iconic... time you hear like cbc is going to put together i don't know top 50 canadian songs of all time that's that's a staple like you're going to hear and i know donovan had the hit with it or whatever but the buffy saint marie version of the song she wrote universal soldier is such a classic and such a great song. But Barry, tell everybody why I played that song. Well, when Buffy came to Toronto, we had booked her. And she was in San Francisco Airport. And this is during the Vietnam War.

And, you know, the government kept saying, oh, there's no, you know, it's not a big war and they were trying to really put it down. And meanwhile, all the, especially, she started to see all these soldiers coming in. They were just bandaged up. They were broken. I mean, she just could not believe how bad it was. And it started to, her mind started to swill as to what, who caused this? You know, what happened? And so she flew to Toronto and she came to our club. And in the basement of our club, she started to write this song, The Universal Soldier.

And it became a big hit, you big hit over time because it exposed exactly what was happening in the Vietnam War. And she was sort of started this whole process of rallies against the Vietnam War and everything else. And it's now, that song is actually in the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. So we got lucky. So just to recap, in 1963, Buffy St. Marie writes Universal Soldier at the Purple Onion. Amazing. So Andrew, how old were you when you realized

that this iconic Canadian song was written at the coffee shop your dad owned and operated? Quite honestly, I think in the last week. I've always known the song, and I actually never realized that she wrote it at the Purple Onion. So, wow, that's a pretty cool fact. I think she must have had a very good coffee, which helped stimulate the wine. Wow. Okay, so 1960 to 1965,

which is not a very long period of time, but still, you know, as you mentioned, Joni Mitchell, who is known as Joni Anderson, Buffy St. Marie, Carly Simon. And did you say Neil Young played the Purple Indian? No. He played the Riverboat. He never played our club.

Okay. But we talked about Carly Simon and Gordon Lightfoot and Judy Collins. Ian and Sylvia Tyson, they played, right? Oh, yeah. They were regulars. They were regulars. At first, they came separately, and then they joined together and became Ian and Sylvia. Right. Speaking of iconic Canadian songs.

But as far as I know, at 35 Avenue Road today, there's a heritage plaque that commemorates the fact that Purple Onion was there from 1960 to 1965, right? That's correct. right that's correct uh here i was really surprised heritage toronto called me and said that you know we want to honor you know uh the purple onion and we'd like to create a plaque and i was bowled over about it and eventually that's what happened And it was put up right on Avenue Road, right just at Yorkville. And it's there today. And so and our names are in there and how we started and so on. right this this yorkville village scene uh you'd like a museum to be well actually i'll let you tell us but you'd like there to be a museum uh as they do this uh development at avenue road in yorkville avenue yeah that sort of came to me not long ago actually um i knew that the developers uh were now moving to get rid of the heritage properties. And they were going to build this big condo.

And in their plans, they were going to build a three-story retail right at the corner of Yorkville and Avenue Road. And that was going to be what their jewel box, what they called. Right. And the city and the planning department didn't really want that to happen without some reference to the heritage of the location and to Yorkville. And so although they approved the fact that they could demolish it, they made a condition that the developer had to come up with what they called the interpretation plan

to recognize what was there before in terms of the heritage and in Yorkville. And when I heard about that, I was really sad about it because this particular developer has practically dominated Yorkville. And he's tearing down all the Victorian homes that were there from 100 years ago. And so what you see today is very little in the way of the types of homes that existed at that time. And so somehow it came into my brain, you know what, I know that there's so many people that are nostalgic about Yorkville, that maybe the whole answer pushing, and that's how the article and the paper came about. And I'm getting a lot of great support from it. Well, I mean, I love it. I mean, that's essentially why you're on this program right now,

because I want to scream it from the mountaintops. Could you be more specific, a little bit more specific about this type of museum? Like, are you looking to recreate that coffee shop vibe that was the purple onion? Like almost like the museum to, yeah, to show a snapshot of that time in Toronto's history? Because, you know, guys my age and Andrew's age, we only know Yorkville now as like a place

where rich people go to shop. Like whenever I hear that that was where the hippies were and that was the scene for the hippies and the folk music, it kind of blows your mind because it seems like the complete opposite now. So is that the interpretation? It'll be like a... Well, the interpretation from the planning department

was just that they wanted, at least within the development, to have some room, an area where they would express what happened in the past, okay? But it was just going to be a small little area with some pictures and so on. And I thought that just doesn't make it. And when I came up with the idea of a museum, I wanted a very, a real large museum, which could maybe hold 100 to 200 people.

On the walls of the museum, there would be one wall that would be a wall of fame, so we could identify all the people who rose to become very well-known. Right. We could have their songs. We could have pictures, videos, all of that there. And on the other walls, we have all kinds of photos and memorabilia and paraphernalia and so on that gave you a sense of what it was like. And it would be designed like a big coffee house. Okay.

Something, I mean, not small, but it would be big. So people walking through can sort of get the feel of what it would look like. And then I said to these people who are actually the heritage architects for the developer, I said, not only would I want that museum to be big, I would like it to have next door a big coffee house, a real coffee house, and a craft room where people could buy anything and everything in that shop, crap shop, okay? And I know from doing some research that that that will be in there will sell out. It'll be T-shirts and it'll have records from the old days and everything. So it's a big undertaking.

But I've already been in touch with the Royal Ontario Museum just to discuss it with them. And yeah, they thought it was very interesting. And can we get it off the ground? So you've had discussions with the city councillor for the area. That's Mike Layden, right? Yes. I actually emailed him to tell him what my idea was. And I actually emailed some other counselors, Mike Cole and so on.

And Mike Layton came back and said, yeah, I mean, on a preliminary basis, yeah, I like it. Okay. On a preliminary basis, yeah, I like it. I believe that the journalist from The Star spoke to him directly, and he confirmed, yes, he liked the idea, but it's early stages, and he has to know more detail and so on, but that's okay. Well it barry uh i'm gonna ask your son andrew uh andrew what do you think of your dad's idea here well i think he uh he hit gold the first time around on a hunch that the uft students needed a coffee shop and i i tend to think he's ahead of his time believing that nostalgia is something that we all kind of yearn for. And I think he's,

I think he's onto something. I think, I mean, who doesn't like a coffee shop and you know, I, if I can go to that or STK, I think I'll take this cultural museum any day. So, and I think a lot of people will gravitate to that. This begs the question, Barry. 1965 was a long time ago. Did you never have an itch to try it again or to own another music venue or a coffee shop?

No, quite honestly, at that point we were tired because I think when we sold the Purple Onion, we didn't go back to Yorkville for years. We just were, because we'd work all day at an accounting firm, and at night we'd go and work there, and on the weekends, you know, we were up till three, four in the morning. Now, we couldn't sell liquors, so at that time, sell liquors so at that time that was you couldn't get a liquor license if you tried and so you could only sell coffee and in fact the city made it really difficult because they said well we won't even because the zoning it was all about the zoning and they said you we'd have to have you introduce like a membership or like a club that's that's why we had to call it that

and we we would charge you know maybe at the time i think we started with 25 cents for a member it eventually got up to a dollar but everybody had to buy a membership and uh the plus there was you, plus a fee to get in. Well, Toronto the Good, they called it, right? It was. Yeah. What's interesting, Mike, is at that time, and we didn't really know it, but Toronto had nothing in this form of real, you know, entertainment and so on. Right.

Especially for young people and because this was near the university of toronto and the fact that it was so well located because that's a very pivotal location yes um when we opened people just couldn't couldn't get enough of it We had lineups around the corner all the time. So the word spread and eventually we brought in entertainers and we created a circuit to go to Hamilton and I think Ottawa, Winnipeg, Montreal, because the entertainers wanted to know they can come in and go to some other places as well.

Barry, I understand you have a soup story for us. Yeah, one of our, we had a small menu with sandwiches and different types of coffee and so on. And, but we always said we had a specialty and that was the purple onion soup. And it became popular. And one day, I don't know if you know remember the name pierre burton of course of course okay pierre burton used to write for the toronto star and he got an invitation to come to our coffee house and one day he actually did and he sat down and he watched the music and so on and he ordered the purple onion soup and

the next day in the paper because he was also a columnist for i think the star uh he just said well i went to the purple onion and oh i love their soup they had the purple onion soup what he didn't know, it was Lipton's diamond soup. It was instant soup. And he's a gourmet, so that's a story that we'll always have. Oh, I love it. I love it. The other thing, if you don't mind, I'd like to mention one other thing. It's important. important. The idea of this museum came about because the developers were going to tear down the properties that we, you know, we had operated in. And they're heritage properties,

and there's not a lot of the heritage properties around in Yorkville. And so I got the idea of this museum just because I was incensed that they were going to tear it down. And I, well, what happened is that I eventually figured out that, you know what, I want to protect those properties. So the museum is, I want it to be built on where those properties are. In other words, convert those properties into a museum. And that's something that I'm really focused on now. This infuriates me. Why do we do that in the city? Why are we so quick to demolish heritage sites

and build up commercial condo hybrid complexes? Well, the problem is that that has been in the past, the issue, that all these properties were being torn down. There was no regulation that were imposed. Finally, the city came along and started to see what other cities are doing about trying to keep those their properties and they've now really expanded okay i mean the federal government has a heritage canada there's a toronto has heritage toronto the city if you take a look at a lot of these buildings including condos the ground floors are actually heritage properties and

most of the condos have to be built above it. And that's what I'm thinking may happen here, is that the museum would be within the heritage properties and above it, they would build the condos. So I'm glad that that is coming along. And if people can support it, let them contact you to say that they support it. Do you ever take a moment to reflect, Barry, on what you accomplished here? Because like a comet, it wasn't a long period of time, but it was very, very bright.

And like the trickle effect. And you must take some responsibility that in what you spawned here in terms of the arts in the city and, you know, some of these people who played your coffee shop and went on to global fame. Like, are you proud of yourself? Yeah, in that sense, I am. I mean, especially now that this whole thing about the museum is taking shape, maybe. I'm very proud.

You know, once we sold and life went on and we had our children and so on, we didn't think about Yorkville anymore because even after we sold, I mean, eventually it got a little rough on Yorkville. They had these motorcycle gangs come in and the drugs and everything else. So there's a little bit of a bitter taste, especially for the politicians. And so we just put it out of our mind and went on with our lives until this whole thing with the plaque came up. And then we thought, boy, I guess we're more popular than we thought. And people really want to know all about it.

Because when we opened the purple onion there really wasn't anything on yorkville there was just primarily there was just the homes right there was all these victorian type homes and slowly they were taken over by sort of boutiques and coffee houses and art galleries and all kinds of things. And then everybody started to come. Andrew, are you proud of your father in this accomplishment? Absolutely. I think, you know, again, I grew up and I'm like, hey, my dad's great dad and he's an accountant. And then he tells us this story of the purple onion.

And I think to your point, it, it, like, if I think about my generation and our culture and, you know, the, the, the passion behind music and the venue that itself drew, I mean, the need for socialization there, the comedy that went through there. And like, it's it is pretty impressive when you think about where Toronto has gone and all the tentacles of the clubs that went through there. And like, it's, it is pretty impressive when you think about where Toronto has gone and all the tentacles of the clubs that formed thereafter, that this spawned. And I think the miraculous part is, I think they did this all on a hunch, and they did this kind of on a whim. Wow. And I love the fact that they just tried something,

and it just took off. Like, you know, so few people would do that. And I guess, you know, having taken my shot at entrepreneurialism, I know how hard it is, but they really were successful with their vision. And even now, he's got another idea that actually, I think, is quite impressive. So yeah, I'm totally impressed. Oh, I'm glad you brought it up, because I was going to point out the obvious here, which is that you have, you know, inherited, maybe it's nature, maybe it's nurture. It's probably a little of a column A, a little of column B, but you mentioned your entrepreneurial spirit because you've done something very similar. You've built something and you should be very proud of what you built with Sticker You. It's in the same spirit of what your dad was doing.

Yeah. There's a bit of nostalgia, which I wanted to hold on to or reinvent with stickers. And I think, you know, there is a parallel there. And also it was at the time viewed as kind of a crazy idea like stickers. What are you doing? Right. And sometimes you just have to go against the grain when when your gut is telling you there's something here and it kind of works on different levels, not just the functional. And I think that's what made Purple Onion so, so great is it was really this this, you know, ecosystem of ideas and people and community and art and expression and the city needed it. You just it just happened to be through a coffee shop, you know. So, Barry, are you proud of what andrew's accomplished with sticker you oh a hundred percent i mean i just am overwhelmed as to what he's been able to do from day one i mean like he said it takes a lot of hard work and

and in his case because his investment has been substantial compared to what our investment was, because of the fact that he has to buy all this equipment and everything else. But he's got a terrific staff and great marketing people. Really, he's got a really good business going, and I'm very proud of it. Very. And Barry, I'm about to blow people's mind with this next fun fact. I think it's wild. But let me ask you, we know you take this risk and you start up the Purple Onion in 1960. Once again, my brain is doing the math.

Are you willing to tell us how old you are? 82. 82, which is awesome. You could have fooled me. Although your groovy black and white camera angle here, you could be anything from like 22 to 122. It's very difficult to tell. But 82 years young, and you're taking on this initiative with the museum in Yorkville. But I understand that you also have a role with Sticker U. What are you doing with Sticker U? Yeah, well, I was very fortunate that Andrew came to me and said, you know, Dad, we need somebody who can drive our car and sort of deliver packages to customers. I said, yeah, I would do that. I mean, I was retired and it would give me something to do. And at the same time, I thought, you know, I could develop some business

for them because I enjoy talking to people. And so I decided I put myself as a business development officer. And you're literally driving the StickerU mobile. Every day. Wow. Yeah. Well, three days a week. But because the business has increased substantially, it's actually got to five days a week. And actually, yeah, I don't mind it because it's a way to get out of the house.

And I wear my mask and deliver everything the right way. So it's been great. There's no better. Well, two things just to add to that is, it's it's phenomenal having my dad, you know, really be an ambassador for the company. And two, I get a lot of texts from people who take in a live picture of the sticker mobile, which is blue with all these crazy stickers on it around town. Right. Say, I just saw the sticker mobile and I thought your dad. it around town, say, I just saw the sticker mobile and I thought your dad, it's classic and true to Barry's form. He doesn't just deliver.

He actually then engages with customers. They're surprised that there's some vehicle driving up their order. They think it's just going to come in the mail. He converses with them and he gives us amazing feedback from customers. And in an era where it's all about digital and e-commerce ordering, it's so nice in the local community of Toronto to be able to have a more direct touch point. So yeah, it's been very rewarding. So if somebody goes to stickeru.com and places an order, Barry might be delivering it in the Stickermobile? Stickermobile? Yeah. So we don't announce it on the website because we get orders from all across North America.

Sure, of course. But anyone who orders out of the GTA is lucky because they get their order faster and direct from the man himself. And now that the people know that that man himself who's driving that mobile, that he is one of the founders of the Purple Onion. You know what I mean? I think that's just amazing. I think it's amazing. I love it. I love it so much. And although not everyone might be able to see this sort of silver black and white video of my, of my dad's camera is the best compliment we got was a customer said, Oh, I just saw your dad, that silver Fox. What a great guy when he when they delivered the package to him. And, you know, he left our Zoom.

Oh, he's coming back here because I want to say goodbye to him properly. Okay. So I was like, was it something you said? No. The Silver Fox is back. The Silver. Actually, I'm working on it. I know you can see.

I'm getting there, man. I like the hair. Barry's kind of my hero here. So before I say goodbye, this has been awesome. I think we've educated a lot of people on the purple onion. Have you ever made purple onion stickers? Good question. We have not made nostalgia ones, but for the museum,

we believe we've got some Scratch and Sniff stickers and some decals that would be very appropriate and resurrecting that logo. Well, I was going to say, you better do something there. There's too many synergies not to do something there. So just before we say goodbye, Andrew, stickeru.com, of course, that's where I've got my decals. These Toronto Mike stickers are so popular. my decals i got these these toronto mic stickers are so popular uh i told listeners that if they're within biking distance i sort of like in the spirit of barry actually if they're within biking distance i said i'm happy i'm happy to bring a sticker you.com toronto mic sticker and put it

in your mailbox or deliver it to you and i've been doing that for uh for the past year now and i mean i've got people now though, I have Quebec listeners who are like, I'm dropping them in the mail because I can't bike to Quebec. It just takes too darn long. But if I'm within biking distance, I hand deliver the stickers, safely masked up, six feet away, blah, blah, blah.

But otherwise, I drop it in the mail and they're very popular. And I've been spotting them on cars and on signs and stuff. Super durable. And some of these stickers were put up like about a year ago and they still look like they're brand new. So good quality stickers here. The laminate protects it.

We actually had a customer come to our office on a bike and on their bike was a bunch of stickers. And one of them was the Toronto Mike sticker. Oh my God. They said they'd had it on for a few months. It was good as new because it's waterproof. So there you go. You're right. I love hearing that.

And I want to thank you guys for your time today. Barry, this was educational and fun. Thanks so much for doing this. Thank you very much, Mike. I appreciate it. Great to be here, Mike. Keep doing what you're doing. We love it.

Andrew, you got to do the sequel. Your second jam kicking. Maybe you can slip in some, uh, Gordon Lightfoot in that one. Yeah. It's a nostalgia and maybe some COVID era tunes. Well, joy divisions, isolation. I think that's gotta be one of them.

Uh, yeah, exactly. Uh, there's a few that I have. And that brings us to the end of our 813th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike.

Barry, you're not on Twitter, are you? I have an account. I've never used it, to be honest. I appreciate the honesty, but I know you can follow StickerU on Twitter. Andrew, you're not on Twitter either. I know I've asked you that in the past. The company is, but yeah. So follow at StickerU. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery, they're not on Twitter either. I know I've asked you that in the past. The company is, but yeah. So follow at StickerU.

Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery, they're at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. StickerU is at StickerU, of course, as I've already said. CDN Technologies are at CDN Technologies. Ridley Funeral Home, they're at Ridley FH. And Mimico Mike, he's not on Twitter either.

He's on Instagram at Majeski Group Homes see you all next week this podcast has been produced by TMDS and accelerated by Rome Phone Rome Phone brings you the most reliable virtual phone service to run your business and protect your home number from unwanted calls. Visit RoamPhone.ca to get started.