During my first ever visit to Toronto last fall, I wanted to get together with a former colleague who lived in the city. He was the first one from my former company to contact me when they were looking for a guy in the Midwest in 2002 and after I was hired he was sort of the guy I turned to over the first couple of years go make sure that I was doing things correctly. He had retired shortly before I was let go in 2021 and because of the pandemic we hadn't seen each other for quite sometime. I called to tell him that I would be up in Toronto and I wanted to get together for dinner at some point. He heartily agreed and suggested some places out by my hotel near the Toronto's Lester Pearson International Airport One of the places he suggested was a steakhouse by the name of Chop in the suburb of Etobicoke. (Pronounced e-TOE-bi-coe). Another former colleague of ours was going to be in town for the trade show and we ended up making it a threesome for dinner at Chop.
When I looked up Chop before I went to Toronto, I found that it was a chain of 17 steakhouses stretching across Canada from British Columbia to Nova Scotia. Chop started in 2007 with its first location in Calgary. But even though it's owned by a large corporate conglomerate, one man has been instrumental in Chop's growth since Day 1.
In the early 90's, Marcel Blais went to work as a busboy at Moxie's Classic Grill - now Moxie's Grill and Bar - in Grand Prairie, AB. He impressed his supervisors so much that they soon promoted him to work in the kitchen, then as a server. Before he graduated from high school, he was promoted to the assistant manager of Moxie's Grand Prairie location.
After graduating high school, Blais went on to college at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta. After getting his degree in business, Blais got a job working as a sales representative for Labatt in Alberta. But after two years, he went to work at Shark Club Sports Bar in Grand Prairie, a sister to Moxie's of which both were owned by the same company - Northland Properties Corporation.
Northland Properties Corporation is a multi-tiered conglomerate owned by the Gaglardi family out of Vancouver, BC whose patriarch Bob Gaglardi founded Northland Properties in 1963 and whose son Tom is the CEO of the company today. In addition to restaurants such as Moxie's, Shark Club and Chop and the Denny's franchises across Canada, Northland Properties also owns resorts, hotels, construction companies, and professional sports franchises including the Dallas Stars of the National Hockey League.
Blais did a little bit of everything at the Shark Club including working behind the bar eventually becoming the restaurant manager. Within 2 years Blais became the regional general manager of the Shark Club restaurants in Western Canada before he named the Director of Operations for the Shark Club restaurants. It was a fast rise in less than six years after graduating from college.
Pictured right - Marcel Blais. Photo courtesy CEO Magazine.
Behind the scenes, executives at Northland Properties were working on a new concept - a casual dining, yet upscale steak and seafood restaurant. The directors at Northland Properties knew the guy they wanted to run all operations with the new steakhouse concept which would be a combination of company-owned and franchisee-owned locations. In 2007, Chop Steakhouse opened their first location in Edmonton with Marcel Blais as the Vice-President of Operations. In 2014, Blais was named President of the Chop Steakhouse brand and in 2021, he also became a franchisee of two locations in Ontario.
My former colleague from Montreal and I were staying in the same hotel and my former colleague from Toronto had made reservations for the three of us for 7 p.m. I had gotten into Toronto earlier than expected and my Toronto friend decided to just come out to the hotel and have a pre-dinner drink before the three of us Uber-ed over to Chop just before 7 p.m.
It was about a kilometer (just over a half-mile) from the hotel to Chop. (see map) Had it been a nicer day, we would have easily walked the distance. But we took the 2 minute Uber ride to the restaurant.
To say Chop was nice is an understatement. The main dining area had two tiers with booths on the upper and lower tiers. The atmosphere was elegant, but not pretentious.
The lounge area at Chop was a classy room with an open ceiling with direct lighting over each table with comfortable cushioned chairs for seating. A horseshoe-shaped bar was the centerpiece of the lounge.
We checked in with the hostess and she said that our table was ready. She shepherded us to the step-up upper level of the dining room and dropped off menus for us to look over. Our server that evening was a pleasant and outgoing young lady by the name of Caroline. She was fun and genial with a bit of sass for the 3 smart-assed guys she was waiting on. My friend from Toronto got his normal rum and Coke, while my friend from Montreal and I got a couple of pale ales to start out.
Later on we ordered a bottle of the Canciller Reserve Malbec. When we worked together at our old company, we all loved Malbec wines as our former boss turned us on to the Argentinian wine after a trip there a number of years ago. I reminded my friends of the time we went to a Brazilian steakhouse in New York City a number of years ago and our old boss ordered a bottle of Malbec and one of the guys from our French factory ordered a French wine. "And the Malbec just stomped on that French wine," I said in recalling that evening. And the Canciller Reserve Malbec also had that big and meaty taste for a red wine.
While steaks are the focus at Chop, they do offer seafood dishes such as a pistachio-encrusted cod and a crab linguine. They also had an oven-roasted chicken entree and baby back ribs. They even had vegetarian options for people like my current colleague who doesn't eat meat.
The steaks at Chop are all seasoned with a combination of salt and spices and cooked on a high temperature (1800F) grill to create a crunchy outer crust. All the steaks are CRSB Certified beef which monitors and certifies sustainably grown beef for Canada. All the regular styles of steaks - rib eye, filet, strip and sirloin steaks - are available on the menu at Chop. They even had a flat iron steak on the menu - something you don't always see at a steakhouse in the U.S.
My two friends went with the rib eye that evening. (They also have a bone-in rib eye and a smoked rib eye on the menu.) They called it 13 ounce in the menu, but it certainly looked bigger than that. A side of steamed vegetables came with the steak and my friend from Toronto got fries for chosen side. Sides of a brown beef gravy and ketchup came with the steak.
I thought about getting the center-cut New York strip, but I ended up getting the prime rib. I asked Caroline to make it the most rare piece of prime rib the chef had in the kitchen. And she certainly came through with flying colors. While the guys got the gravy on the side with their steaks, they put the gravy directly on half of the prime rib. I had never had prime rib with gravy on it before and would have preferred it was served on the side. But it certainly wasn't a deal-breaker. I also got the steamed veggies and fries for my sides. I didn't even attempt to touch the vegetables because I was much more interested in the prime rib. I had also asked Caroline for extra fresh ground horseradish and she didn't disappoint there, either. In addition to the regular dollop on the plate, she brought out a healthy-sized container of the pungent horseradish that had a great punch to it.
And everyone was happy with what they got. My friends steaks were cooked to a perfect medium rare and my rare-plus-cooked prime rib was just excellent. It was tender, juicy, and full of great beef flavor. And I certainly didn't mind the gravy they had put on half the prime rib slab. I hadn't gotten prime rib for quite sometime and this was a major spot-hitter for me. The fries were also very good with a crunchy outer shell and a light and flaky potato inner core.
We hung out for a while after dinner catching up on things before we realized that we were the last people in the dining room at Chop. My friend from Toronto said that he needed to get heading back home, about a 30 minute Uber ride to his house. My friend from Montreal suggested that we walk back to the hotel, but it was a cold night and I didn't have a heavy coat with me. I said that I'd spring for the short Uber ride back to the hotel.
Knowing my former colleague from Toronto as I do, I knew that he wouldn't steer us wrong on a restaurant to have dinner at and to catch up on what is going on with everyone's life. And Chop was a perfect spot for three old friends to do just that. The prime rib - even with gravy slathered over half of it - was outstanding, and my friends were very complimentary of the rib eye steaks they both had. Caroline was a great waitress, on top of her game with a bit of friendly smart-assed demeanor. All in all, Chop was a winner of a steakhouse.
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