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Toronto · Venue

Free Times Café

A close-range College Street room where folk-rooted sets, open stages and Klezmer share space with a full restaurant.

Upcoming shows
41
Capacity
50
Address
320 College Street, Toronto, ON M5T 1S3
Phone
(416) 967-1078
Next show
Tue, 29 Sept 2026
Official siteDirections
Free Times Café in Toronto

About Free Times Café

Free Times Café is a Toronto restaurant venue with event-room capacity for up to 50 people and room for 110 across the full restaurant. Established in 1980 and run by Judy Perly, it puts live performance inside a three-part space: Bella’s Bistro, a bar area and the Club Room. That arrangement makes dinner part of the evening’s rhythm, while the venue’s tally of 15,000-plus nights of music, comedy and spoken word points to an unusually extensive performance history for a café-scale room.

A café that built its own stage

The story begins in May 1980 as the Free Parking Cafe. It adopted the Free Times name that July; in December 1981, former co-owner Judy Perly became sole owner and launched the music program. Early back-room sessions ran on Saturday nights with no cover, no stage and no sound system, with artists paid in food. Within three years, the schedule had grown into nightly music, weekend singer-songwriters and a Monday open stage.

A 1990 fire forced the venue through its sharpest reset. Perly later recalled that customers had scattered by the time it reopened, and she responded by bringing family Jewish recipes into the kitchen. That shift tied the food and performance identities together, a connection still heard in the live Klezmer that accompanies the Sunday brunch buffet.

The room today

The Club Room hosts nightly entertainment in an all-ages setting, with original music at the core alongside comedy, poetry and other events. Folk and acoustic songwriting remain central to its history, while Klezmer holds a recurring place in the present programme. Expect a compact back-room experience beside the bistro and bar, plus a one-food-or-drink minimum in the Club Room. Artists and promoters submit proposed dates, an event idea and their actual Toronto audience draw; ticket revenue goes directly to performers.

Sources

  1. About Us — Free Times Café
  2. Entertainment — Free Times Café
  3. RPM, November 13, 1995 — World Radio History
  4. Toronto's restaurant icons spill their secrets — NOW Magazine

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