[URBAN NOTE] "Toronto's Country Style Hungarian reopens doors with traditional menu intact"

[rfmcdonald]

In The Globe and Mail, John Lorinc reports on the return of the Annex's Country Style Hungarian restaurant to operation.

When Country Style Hungarian Restaurant, a venerable schnitzel house on Bloor Street West, shut its doors earlier this summer, rumours quickly began circulating in Toronto’s food-o-sphere about its demise.

Which wouldn’t have been such a surprise. After all, the 54-year-old Annex institution is the last survivor in a stretch once known as the goulash archipelago, with eateries such as The Coffee Mill, Marika’s, Csarda House, The Blue Danube Room, Continental and Korona. The owners have mostly retired or died.

This particular closure turned out to be not only temporary, but a kind of reboot. The interlude allowed owner Katalin Koltai to do a stem-to-stern renovation, the first real overhaul since 1975. The restaurant reopened late last month.

[. . .]

The facelift cost her more than $150,000 and is meant to secure the business so that Ms. Koltai’s daughter, also named Katalin, can take over when she retires. The work included new kitchen equipment, counters, chairs, bathroom fixtures and even a digital cash register to replace the restaurant’s antiquarian push-button version.