Above the din of clanging glasses and friendly conversation at Mimico's historic Blue Goose Tavern chimes the half-hourly bells and whistles of the Lakeshore GO Train - but if one listens even more carefully, sometimes vague echoes of the bar's namesake, a great old, blue-tinged steam engine, can be heard in its wake.
Originally constructed in 1909, the building in which the Blue Goose resides has always acted as a hub of community activity, first as the Windsor Public House, where ten cents could buy you a pint of draft, but your date had to sit in a different room (men and women were segregated in those days). While Windsor was its proper name, locals were likely to refer to it by its nickname, "The Goose", after a blue steel train whose engineer would make frequent stops at the pub while passing through town to "wet his whistle" before continuing his run, explained current owner Terry Chemij.
"Then he'd get the call from downtown that he had to move the train - there wasn't a lot of tracks in those days and he was holding up traffic," he said with a chuckle.
The Chemij family bought the Windsor in 1958, officially changed its name in 1971, and successfully lobbied to have its Vincent Street address changed to Blue Goose Street in 1989 - a task made significantly easier, Chemij noted, by the very fact that most of the guys in what was then Etobicoke's City Hall were frequent customers of the establishment.
This Saturday the Chemij family is set to celebrate a half century of Blue Goose ownership with a customer appreciation celebration like none other - an all-day "party extravaganza" featuring a free barbecue and pig roast and entertainment courtesy of the George Kash Band. Described as Cheers-like in its 'everybody-knows-your-name' like atmosphere, the Blue Goose is touted as Mimico's favourite watering hole; one of those places where generations come to share a pint and relax among friends and neighbours.
Chemij was just ten when his father, Jerry Sr., bought the Blue Goose after ten years of running a local grocery store. His earliest memories of the bar are of being assigned the duty of scrubbing years worth of nicotine stains from its walls - a task he attributes to his lifelong aversion to cigarettes. Always a family-run business, three of Jerry Sr.'s four sons have worked at the bar, a tradition Chemij has tried to continue with his own children - albeit somewhat unsuccessfully.
"My son Adrian used to work Fridays, but he just can't do the late nights anymore," he said with a laugh. But for Chemij, it's the quick pace that keeps things interesting. "The hustle and bustle of running this place gets into your blood and keeps me going. There are so many fond memories at the Blue Goose."
First and foremost among them for Chemij was more than a decade ago when Mimico native and then Detroit Red Wings right-winger Brendan Shanahan brought the Stanley Cup to the bar to share a celebratory drink from.
"No one knew he was coming, not even the doorman," he said. "Brendan's brother called us up and said he didn't want the media to find out, but we ended up having an all out celebration, with customers all dressed in Red Wings jerseys. It was a great time."
The rest of the bar's history is mapped out across its walls - with turn of the century photos of the Blue Goose's neighbours posing in what was then an adjacent field full of horses, to snapshots of the building, vintage cars parked at its rear, yellowed by years of nicotine, to a line-up of all the group photos of the sports teams the bar has sponsored over the years.
Fifty years is a lot of memories, Chemij said, but it's also a lot of work. So how has the Blue Goose managed to stay afloat all these years?
"We've kept it the same old beverage style. We don't allow kids in here. We have a snack bar. If you wanna eat, you have to get up and get it yourself," he said. "We've just kept it the same; we've kept everything consistent...and the price is right here, the best cold draft in the city."
Blue Goose's customer appreciation day takes place this Saturday, June 7, from 1 to 5 p.m. at 1 Blue Goose St. All are invited to partake in the celebrations, which will feature the George Kash Band, City Councillor Mark Grimes, MPP Laurel Broten, and former Etobicoke Mayor Bruce Sinclair.