Best for
- Groups that want to do things — pool, foosball, shuffleboard, darts, pinball
- Match days — Arsenal mornings and Jays games are a scene of their own
- A loud, loose, no-dress-code start (or end) to a west-side night
Skip if
- You want a dance floor and a DJ-driven club night — that's not this room
- You're dressed for bottle service — you'll be the most formal person in the building
- You want quiet conversation on a Friday — the volume says otherwise
The Dock Ellis opened in November 2013 at Dundas and Dovercourt, founded by Andrew Kaiser and Callum Woods — the pair behind The Emmet Ray — with their friend Alain Pitout. The name is the tell: Dock Ellis was the Pirates pitcher who claimed he threw a 1970 no-hitter on LSD, and the bar carries that same grinning, slightly unserious energy. It's a sports bar built by people who like bars more than they like sports-bar clichés.
The daytime program is the best of its kind on the west side. Screens behind the bar and around the room, craft beer taps, cocktails, and a genuine games arsenal toward the back: foosball, pool, shuffleboard, crokinole, darts, pinball. It's the official Toronto home of Arsenal FC supporters — the T-dot Gooners — and the bar opens early for Arsenal matches, F1 races and Blue Jays games. A big Premier League morning here is one of the city's great non-nightlife nightlife experiences: full room, pints at 10am, the whole bar living and dying on a back pass.
The reason it's on this site: at night the sports bar quietly becomes a party bar. Fridays and Saturdays run loud and full — less watching, more shouting — and the downstairs space hosts shows, DJs and ticketed events through the year. It never turns into a club, and it isn't trying to; there's no dance floor, no dress code, no door. But if your idea of a night out is games, pints and volume rather than bottle sparklers, this room delivers more fun per dollar than almost anywhere in this guide.
Bottom line: come for a match or come after 10pm — both versions are the real thing. Pair it with Mahjong Bar next door for a two-stop night, or walk ten minutes to Queen West when you need a dance floor. For groups on a budget, this is the easy call.
