Jump, known in the pre-Plenty of Fish-and-Grindr world as the premier spot for business people to meet each other, has just re-opened after its most extensive renovation in the landmark bar and restaurant’s 20-year history.
The first in the now ubiquitous
Oliver and Bonacini chain, Jump opened in 1993 as a hopeful investment in a financial district still smarting from the 1989-90 crash.
"This was one of our smoothest construction jobs," says Theresa Suraci, O&B’s director of marketing and communications. "We shut for a month, which is always a very challenging schedule when you’re doing as much work as we did but I think they ran into very few hiccoughs."
The renovation cost $1 million, which Suraci takes some pleasure in pointing out is what it cost to build the establishment in the first place.
The press release announcing the re-opening describes the new interior as "intimate" with "Cognac-coloured leathers, tones of charcoal grey and warm amber woods."
"We are celebrating 20 years in business," says co-owner Michael Bonacini,
who left his job at
Centro to join Peter Oliver in the new venture, "and there are certainly times in a restaurant’s life when it needs a little TLC. That said, it’s still the solid bones of Jump. It just needed a facelift to make it feel more current and vibrant. That’s essential in the restaurant industry, especially in the very competitive downtown core.
"Whenever you renovate in a building in the downtown core, you’re dealing with one of the most challenging projects imaginable, given that it directly affects an asset worth millions of dollars. In this case we’re working around say 5,000 occupants of the building, all affected by things like deliveries, offloading, noise, vibrations and general safety factors. For instance, we needed to core through a concrete slab in order to move a fire hose cabinet, requiring us to x-ray the concrete to assess issues of structural rebar or electrical conduit. The problem is that no one can be within 150 feet at the time the x-ray is taken, which means that due to the close proximity of the escalators and subway below, we had only a couple of hours in the middle of the night to possibly schedule the procedure. It took us seven days just to coordinate the scheduling. These types of renovations are infinitely complicated."
Jump is located at 18 Wellington Street, just west of Yonge.
Writer: Bert Archer
Sources: Theresa Suraci, Michael Bonacini
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