Hugh's Room Live — Local services in Toronto

Jane Siberry at Hugh's Room, November the 27th… What a great place. I called ahead to make sure of the tickets I'd purchased online; not an easy find with the delightful and sold out songstress Canadian Jane Siberry in town. For her second Toronto show, a gracious Executive Director, Michael, assured me all was well in the day leading up, and what a venue! Originally a church, with a gallery and lower level facilities, this gem of a spot had acoustics well suited, and made good on, by the dainty and coquettish Jane of the lovely eyes and smile. Canada's Indie Queen was preceded by opening act Jay Feelbender, who instantly had us singing along, as I continue to do so with his EP that was available at the door. Lovely to behold and demure as ever, with her signature style in plumage and trill, 'twas Jane who was queen of the stage I've taken the liberty of showing here from some kind contributors to the web. Funny, melancholic, hopeful, and with a blunt wit that had us all in stitches, she strung a story to guitar, piano, and backing recording that swept us up and away. Wielding her craft of past and present wares like a wand, Jane enchanted us with the simplest of mechanics and the depths of her soul. I hold in the highest praise Hugh's new locale; they made sure those who were differently abled could come to Jane's show by hook or by crook, and are drumming up funding for an elevator; that should speak to the efforts everyone went to making the evening an inclusive one. At her surprise encore, Jane sat down at the piano only to promptly stand right back up and march around it, brusquely moving a music-stand out of the way, so her whole audience could see her. I have to say, I can see why the jolie chanteuse followed Hugh's Room from the West End for her performances; this crew really cares about their patrons in a way emblematic of how Jane feels about love in the world, with no obsequiousness here. I feel quite lucky to have been in the presence of so many beautiful people. Jane, Jay, Michael — thank you. I'll be back for more offerings in this astonishingly salon like venue; with Jane's fans, it was as if being in a music hall full of dear Friends, and indeed, Calling All Angels, we most certainly were. Thanks, Hugh's Room: à la...

DON'T EAT AT HUGH'S ROOM. Apparently they have a new manager and new menu two weeks ago and both are a disaster. We went May 5 and while the show was incredible, the food and service were horrible. It took them 2.5 hours to serve our table of five in bits and pieces and others were having similar issues. My partner got his steak...served in a tiny ramekin?? 1.5 hours in, and then his side of potatoes, after being reminded three times, an hour after that??? WHAT? No one got any of their food together or in any order that made sense. The salad was plain huge leaves of lettuce (older) drenched with straight oil of questionable quality. The halibut was a joke, again served in a ramekin, about 2 ounces of fish, ambitiously priced, and horrible...watery, flavourless, definitely microwaved. It arrived at the end of the meal. Taco salad was disgusting, side veggies (called zuccini and tomatoes with parm on menu) arrived as flavourless zuccini, one piece of tomato, no parm, all microwaved. We never saw our server, once she served the fish and we expressed our dismay (another helping, even more disgusting, was brought by someone else), until she offered us dessert at the end of the first set, insultingly late. She didn't even bother to cash us out, someone else did that. Food was expensive for garbage quality and tiny servings, and mostly microwaved. It was literally the worst experience any of us have ever had in a restaurant in our lives. Hugh's Room Board: get some money to hire people who know what they are doing, for god's sake. Will never eat...

I really want Hugh's Room to thrive, but I'm feeling pretty disappointed (again) after my last visit. 1. The performance line up is great. 2. The food and availability continues to suffer. On my last visit, the first two beers I ordered were out. Then when I ordered the pricey $23 burger, I learned that they'd just served the last one (even tho' it was still really really early in the evening). Strike three. I ended up asking for fries and another starter. How hard can that be? When they arrived, the fries were obviously last night's fries warmed over. When their replacements arrived, they were slightly better, but still pretty awful. To her credit, the server got the message from the uneaten bowl of potatoes and didn't charge for them in the end. My friend ordered the cornish hen. When it arrived it looked like a brain swimming in sauce. See the photo. 3. The ticket reservation system/model needs to be radically re-invented. I don't just mean that the rickety online booking tool needs to be fixed (it does). I mean that the pretence about forcing groups to buy entire tables (rather than seats) and pressuring people to eat a lousy overpriced meal just to get a ticket to a music performance has to be rethought. Also, suggesting that ticket buyers have to show up 2 hours early because you won't honour their reservation 15 minutes past the time automatically assigned to the limited number of 3 person tables is...