Leading the cocktail democracy
Behind the Boîte with the gents of Rush Lane
By MARTA S
15-second, deliciously snackable intro video created by Carrie Hayden.
I’d heard a lot about Rush Lane & Co. in the weeks after it opened in July of 2014. Everything I heard, it seemed, came straight from the mouths of fellow bartenders or other industry friends. It was all overwhelmingly positive. But — I’ll admit — I never got around to stopping in.
That is until one glorious late summer afternoon, when — after finishing a particularly grueling lunch shift at my own bar — I wanted to take my mind off my harried day. So I decided to walk home from work, all the way to Parkdale, along Queen West from John Street.
Rush Lane is hard to miss. With its vibrant, white neon signage contrasting beautifully with its bold, turquoise-hued façade, it’s a place you just know you should check out if you’re ever walking by. And that’s exactly what I did that day.
One flaming blended cocktail and delicious falafel salad later, I had locked in Rush Lane for an interview. Rush Lane has five owners (Brett Klyszejko, Doug Twigger, Jordan Bushell, Simon Hooper, one silent). While my preference is always to get every owner’s side of the story together at once, the bartender in me was so taken by Rush Lane’s offerings (and the stellar, totally unpretentious service I received from bar manager Zak Doy) that I happily bent my own journalistic rules for the place.
One night a few weeks later, I cheerfully schlepped my way through the rain to sit down with Brett, Doug, and Jordan.
Industry folk — you’ll be rooting for these cats by the end of this story. If you aren’t already, that is.
When life gives you lemons, open your own bar
The men of Rush Lane had all worked with each other at various bars in the years before their partnership. The bulk of their work together happened at — as Doug says with just a tiny bit of irony in his voice — “the world-famous Brassaii!”
I learn that Jordan constructed the first cocktail program there (Jordan Stacey — current Abosult Elyx brand manager for East Coast Canada — was his head bartender). He brought Brett over to Brassaii from a job at Wayne Gretsky’s. Doug was eventually hired on. And Jordan — with the help of his team — meticulously “built [Brassaii] up from the bar side, as far as what the [drink] offerings were,” Jordan says.
Unfortunately, the carefully crafted cocktail list was overshadowed when Brassaii’s focus shifted from “bar offerings” to “bumpin’ club nights”.
“We had put so much heart and soul into building a great cocktail program and a great following and great regulars,” Jordan tells me. “It was very disheartening — kind of soul-crushing in a way — to see that shift. That’s when we realized that the only way to get the bar you want is to own it.”
Thus began a grueling year-and-a-half long search for the perfect space to house the bar of their dreams. After seeing property after property swept out from under them by people with more money or ownership experience — “Even though we’d run a history of successful bars and, collectively, had over 75 years of bar experience between us,” Jordan says pointedly — they finally secured the property on Queen West that would become Rush Lane.
But only after three solid months of unexpectedly intense renovations. Of course.
Well, did YOU know it was called Rush Ln?
Rush Lane & Co. backs onto an alleyway that is the bar’s namesake. You — like many Torontonians — might know it as “Graffiti Alley” or “the place where Rick Mercer films his rants”. Not even the guys themselves — also like many Torontonians — knew the alleyway’s official name when they bought the property on Queen Street.
It was Brett who discovered it — a discovery that helped inspire their identity.
“There used to be these old pub-style booths in here before we renovated,” Jordan recalls (the space was a Hot Wings restaurant before their takeover).
“We were all sitting at one of them, trying to come up with a name. And Brett walked in. ‘You know that back alley? It’s called Rush Lane,’ he said. As soon as he said it, we couldn’t get [Rush Lane] out of our heads. It was exactly what we wanted. The word ‘rush’ has so much energy to it; the word ‘lane’ reminded us of quiet, calm. A Beatles album. It’s a phrase that can be all things to all people.”
The partners also drew a parallel between the alley’s famous graffiti and the thoughtfully crafted cocktails they knew they would offer — both being a form of unique artistic expression easily shared with and enjoyed by the public.
The care that goes into styling their unique drink offerings extends into the aesthetic of the space itself.
Brett — an Australian transplant — describes the feel of Rush Lane as a 70s inspired living room/bachelor pad. “We wanted to create an actual living room feel, though — not just a generic 70s ‘lounge’,” he elaborates. They were mindful not to make the design too hokey. Brett steered their vision in the right direction with extensive help from his design partner, Justin Vinet. “[Justin] was always there when we needed him,” Brett tells me.
The result of Brett and Justin’s execution is a blend of clean lines (the pub booths have been replaced by blond wood high tops and minimalist, cubic tables) and retro authenticity, provided — in large part — by a multi-gallon fish tank which houses exotic-looking neon fish, adjacent to an entire wall of built-ins housing hundreds of vinyl albums.
“Of course we’re a bunch of guys who never lived in the 70s,” Jordan says, smiling, “but we thought, ‘What’s more 70s than a giant fish tank?’ And — luckily enough — we have a good friend who’s really into fish. He’s the one that maintains it. So really, this is our buddy Andrew’s tank, not ours. He’s actually a professor at U of T!”
A good man to know.
As for the records, “they’re all real. There are actually records in all of [the sleeves],” Brett tells me. “They’re not all great…” he trails off sheepishly, as Doug pulls one out at random to illustrate.
“The World of… Gracie Fields”? Right.
“We got most of them from this great used record store called Neurotica. The owner was always really cool when I went in. So one day I asked him, ‘You don’t by any chance have — I don’t know — a thousand records lying around, do you?’” Brett recalls, jokingly. “But he actually had a whole basement full of records that he couldn’t sell. He gave them to us for a bulk discount. And now, people keep bringing in random records and giving them to us.”
Which is nice. And this design decision ended up inspiring some great evenings at Rush Lane, as they began hosting vinyl DJ nights.
“Was the renovation a full gut job?” I ask Brett.
“It wasn’t meant to be!” he responds, and all three partners laugh. “But we got it done.”
“We kept the kitchen?” Jordan offers helpfully.
“Not even!” Doug interjects. “We kept the walls!”
“We realized pretty quickly — the building’s 25 years old, and there’d been so many businesses run in it already that it was a rat’s nest of everybody else’s horrible decisions,” Brett says with a wry smile. “The easiest way we could deal with that was to take everything out.”
And while all the partners (and many of their friends) worked hands-on with the renos, “Brett did basically 99% of it,” Doug insists graciously. “He was here from sun up to sun up.”
But while Brett was at the helm of bringing Rush Lane’s look to life, the bar’s overall concept was the product of intense collaboration and brainstorming among the team as a whole.
This is how the partners insist on doing things — especially when it comes to food and drink.
Enter the Cocktail Democracy
“We’ve always come up with our cocktail concepts together. Always have, always will,” Doug says, matter-of-factly. “I think that’s the good thing about our place. And nothing at all against a bar having a single bartender that writes the list; but sometimes they can just end up following the same path. This way we can create one drink that has influence from five or six other people.
“Even down to the food — everyone has their own input,” he adds. “You try it together. It’s a process full of people’s suggestions.”
Rush Lane’s menu has undergone a transformation since opening in July of 2014 (Toronto Life described their food offerings back then as “molecular”).
“We realized how our customers felt: When you have all this fun creativity with the alcohol, you just need something to eat on the side,” Jordan explains. “You don’t necessarily need this incredible pairing experience. So we went with what the customers wanted. We sat down with some friends that worked in our kitchen, and we all collaborated on what the menu should be.” Rush Lane’s food is now substantially simpler in presentation, but still super tasty and crowd-pleasing.
“Our burger was especially awesome to figure out. As I’d be working the bar, I’d get to try all these different ways we were experimenting with it,” Doug laughs.
“I think we tried 37 different burger variations,” Jordan says without exaggeration.
“Until it hit the one where everybody as a whole went, ‘Yeah, that’s our burger,’” Doug adds, nodding.
Consistency is key
If you need any illustration as to why the cocktails ended up being the stars of Rush Lane’s show, ask the guys about the Lab. A high-tech back room filled with impressive-looking machinery, Rush Lane’s custom-built cocktail laboratory illustrates just how seriously these mixologists take their craft.
Housing equipment like a rotary evaporator and a centrifuge, Jordan insists that “everything in there does something pretty simple.” Besides being a way for all the bartenders to have fun harnessing flavours and experimenting with different combinations, an important goal of the Lab is to create unfailing consistency among Rush Lane’s drink offerings.
“The meters we have in there to measure the sugar or juices within our syrups, for example — we use them to take human error out of [our ingredients],” Jordan tells me. “So when we have our great bartenders behind the bar, everyone’s working with the exact same thing. Doug’s simple syrup is not slightly, microscopically sweeter than mine. That way, we can better make the same drink.”
Feelin’ the good in their ‘hood
These three owners get pretty jazzed when talking about the neighbourhood they ended up doing business in. Sure, they imply that — generally speaking — they might not have the most faith in how much our government supports small businesses (or rather, how much they feel it doesn’t). But on the whole, these nice guys are refreshingly positive about their first-time ownership experience.
“Queen Street has so many walks of people — we were a little iffy on what clientele would actually end up coming through our doors,” Doug says, only half-joking. “But at the end of the day, there’s a lot of other cocktail bars in the area. And they’ll send people — when they leave their bar — here to us, and vice versa. We’re like a big family, really.”
“The only hindrance might be that this particular strip of Queen West hasn’t been hyped as much in lifestyle publications as West Queen West or King West has been,” Jordan adds. “Because this particular area is so eclectic, it hasn’t fit into one identity yet. It’s less definable. But it’s a great barhop strip. No matter what you’re in the mood for, there’s probably something here for you.”
“The cultural diversity in Toronto and people’s growing awareness of cocktails and cocktail culture here in the last five years or so has been a huge benefit to us, too,” Brett chimes in.
“And another benefit of opening up in Toronto is that you’re given the chance to make Toronto better with your business — to offer this city a good product,” Doug says passionately. “We have people coming to Toronto because of us now. We have regulars who come up from New York!”
“We had a couple from Florida who showed up just yesterday because their friends had told them about us,” Brett tells me. “It’s good for the city.”
“As long as are you’re doing something positive,” adds Doug.
“In the end, we might have encountered less government regulation if we had opened in, say, Winnipeg, but we don’t understand the market there,” Jordan states plainly. “So despite some government setbacks, we had the advantage of understanding what Queen West was all about, and we were lucky enough to actually open on it.”
On the docket at Rush Lane…
Expect to see more guest bartenders — from Toronto and abroad — sharing their skills behind the wood, as well as more cocktail competitions in the vein of Rush Lane’s successful (and fun and refreshing) “No rules, no brands, no bullshit” competition hosted earlier this year.
As for what these three dream they’d be doing if they weren’t running Rush Lane?
Brett: “I would love to, at the moment — and this changes a lot — be a bladesmith. Make high quality knives for chefs. Start just from the raw metal and melt it down and make the whole thing from scratch myself.”
Doug: “I would be traveling the world with one of my best friends, going to every golf course that we could, taking notes, and then building and running our own golf club. Taboo up in Muskoka is my favourite course. It’s beautiful.”
Jordan: “I would probably race sailing yachts.”
There’s a beat in the conversation. Then Doug side-eyes Jordan, a sly grin spreading across his face, and says, “You would. That’s exactly something you’d do!”
After some good-natured ribbing all around — these guys have, after all, worked together for years — Jordan is allowed to elaborate.
“I grew up around water,” he explains, grinning himself. “I taught canoeing, kayaking; I was a lifeguard. Water relaxes me. And the idea of having no fixed address, too — I mean, if you sail the world, home is where your boat is.”
But for now, home is Rush Lane.
Open 5pm — 2am, daily.
You can find Rush Lane located smack in the middle of Bathurst and Spadina on the south side of Queen West. Come ogle the gorgeous bar set-up, order a drink that might arrive on fire (on purpose, of course), and mong out to the neon fish in their giant aquarium.
I call the big one “Bitey”.
Marta S is a freelance writer and bartender living and working in Toronto. If you or someone you know would like to be profiled by Behind the Boîte, email her at marta@behindtheboite.com.
She takes all kinds.
