Bye Bye Sea Hi restaurant

What's changed in Toronto that it has caused so many long running institutions to start disappearing?


Today is the last day of the decades long running restaurant Sea-Hi Tavern on Bathurst Street just south of Wilson Ave in Toronto.

It seems odd now that this dated Chinese Food restaurant would sit in a predominantly Jewish area.  It's also hard to believe how long it's been in existence compared to the flash in the pan restaurants that have been popping up over the past 5 years.

There really wasn't anything special about this place other than the fact that it was in a dessert of nothing else like it and it was consistent.

Sea-Hi was opened by Edna Chan in 1955, just in time for the birth of my older brother.  Yes this place has been around longer than I have.

My parents probably went there when they needed a break from cooking and dealing with kids as parents do.  It was rare for my parents to go out for dinner so going to eat Chinese Food was a special occasion usually with their friends. 

It is a fact that a lot of non religious Jewish people would go to Chinese Food Restaurants over the holidays like Christmas because they were the only restaurants open and if you didn't want to cook for a big family that's just what you did.

I haven't really been there in years even though one of my friends lives down the street.  I think the last time I went was maybe 6 months before I sold my car and only to get some of their popular bacon wrapped chicken skewers.

But in the past couple of weeks I have gone there twice.  The first time to get take out with a friend that doesn't live too far from there.  Even though we ordered before 5 it was a bit of a wait and the poor counter guy was going crazy trying to keep up with orders.  One after another every Jewish person in the area came in to the tiny take out area to order or pick up food.  The wait kept getting longer as we were waiting for our pick up and some people just couldn't wait.

One guy waiting said he tried to get some people together to buy their recipes but I guess that didn't work out so well.

Someone else said that they think it's going to be either a Dollarama or a Synagogue.  I think the Synagogue may be more appropriate for that area but I guess we will have to see.

By the time we got to my friends place and started unwrapping the food some of it was already cold though.  You can't really be upset considering all the people now surging to get their last fix in like we did.  It's not exactly the same as I remembered it but I wasn't a food blogger when I used to eat there so I didn't have as much to compare it to.

The following week I went with different friends.  The one that lives nearby and another one who lives downtown and had never been there.  He wasn't too sure if he wanted to go but then after the meal he said he wanted to bring another friend there but too late because even after they extended the closing today is the last day.

The 3 of us sat in the very dated and in serious need of a makeover dining room this one last time.  The service was excellent but the restaurant wasn't totally full.  The tables were covered in Dollarama tablecloths, I know them well because we use them at work for our social events.

We didn't order that much.  We ordered the bacon wrapped chicken which has clearly been made way in advanced and lacked that fresh out of the fryer taste.  We also ordered shrimp fried rice, eggplant with black bean sauce and orange beef.  I might have chosen other things but we each picked something we wanted.

The food was ok, nothing spectacular but it was more important to show up and show support to a business that has been around for decades as a thank you for their service to the community.

Although it's not somewhere I think of going to eat I am still going to miss it being there.  It was kind of the same thing when Honest Ed's closed down.  It was part of my childhood and a place that my parents counted on.  I wish my parents had Instagram back then because I don't have any photos of them going there now.
Times change but sometimes it's nice to see things last for generations to share.