The Journal · The Brantford Club
The Olde School Restaurant vs The Brantford Club: A Schoolhouse and a Doctor’s House
The Olde School Restaurant and Piano Bar is a restaurant in an 1870s schoolhouse at 687 Powerline Road, Brantford, with seven private rooms and printed group menus. The Brantford Club is a members’ club kept at 98 George Street, a house of about 1855 with four rooms that dine and a menu planned with the kitchen for one party.
If the restaurant is what you were after, its own listing says this. The Olde School Restaurant and Piano Bar is at 687 Powerline Road, at Paris Road West, west of Highway 403; the phone is 519-753-3131, or 1-888-448-3131 toll-free. It is closed Mondays and open Tuesday to Sunday from 11:30 in the morning, Saturdays from 4:30 in the afternoon, with the last reservation at 8:30 at night. It reserves by phone or by email to info@oldeschoolrestaurant.ca, and its contact page says a call gets the quicker answer. For a family party of forty who want to order off a printed group menu on a Sunday, the schoolhouse is the answer, and it has been doing it since 1982. What follows is for a dinner of a different shape.
A Schoolhouse of the 1870s and a House of About 1855
Two of Brantford’s old buildings set private tables, and neither was built for it. The Olde School Restaurant and Piano Bar occupies a converted schoolhouse at 687 Powerline Road that dates, as it states, to the 1870s, when it was known as the Moyle School; it has traded as a restaurant since 1982, and its home page records that the Queen dined there on Saturday, June 28, 1997. The Brantford Club keeps its rooms at 98 George Street, within sight of the Court House, in an Italianate residence built around 1855, from before the City existed, incorporated in 1877. Dr. John Y. Bown, a physician and Member of Parliament across the Confederation years, lived there, and the Club bought the house in 1898 for $4,500.00, per the Club’s centennial history. A school and a doctor’s house, some twenty years apart in age, now both lay a table for a party that wants a room to itself.
Which has private dining rooms, The Olde School or The Brantford Club?
Both do, and the count is seven to four. The Olde School Restaurant lists seven private dining and banquet rooms on its group-menu page and offers them for weddings, anniversaries, first communions, birthday parties, and business meetings. A per-person deposit on a credit card holds a room, by its contact page, with thirty days’ notice asked for a refund. The Brantford Club has four rooms that dine: four rooms that dine: the dining room, the Bateson Lounge, the 98 George Room, and the Waterous Family Dining Room. A private dinner at 98 George Street is a member’s evening: one room of the house held for one party, a menu planned beforehand with executive chef Eric Wasylenky’s kitchen, no walk-through traffic past the door, and no second seating waiting for the table. The schoolhouse seats several parties in several rooms on one night from the same printed menus. The house takes one party into one room and cooks what that party settled on.
The Four Rooms That Dine at 98 George Street
Four rooms take a table, by the Club’s private-dining page, and the longer account of the house, with the Charter that hung in the dining room, is in the Journal’s entry on the rooms at 98 George Street. Chairs are settled at the enquiry, with the room and the menu.
The dining room
The principal table of the house, where the Club has lunched and dined since 1898 and where the framed Charter of July 16, 1898 hung, its purpose clause reading “to establish and maintain a social club.”
The Waterous Family Dining Room
Named for the Waterous family of the 1898 Charter roll, where Charles Waterous is entered as Manufacturer; a private room for dinners and family occasions.
The 98 George Room
The room that hosts the Club’s Cocktail Fridays and takes a private table as readily; the house’s address is in its name.
The Bateson Lounge
The soft-chair room, for a drink before the table and conversation after it.
The Olde School Restaurant vs The Brantford Club, Point for Point
What each address publishes about itself is set out below; the dress row has a longer answer in the Journal’s entry on the club dress code.
| The point | The Olde School Restaurant | The Brantford Club |
|---|---|---|
| The door | 687 Powerline Road at Paris Road West | 98 George Street, on the Court House corner |
| The premises | A restaurant and piano bar, open to the public | A private members’ club with its own dining rooms |
| Serving since | 1982, by its own site | Since 1898 |
| Private rooms | Seven, each with a different theme | Four: the Waterous Family Dining Room, the 98 George Room, the Bateson Lounge, and the dining room |
| What is served | Printed group menus, chosen ahead | Planned with the kitchen and priced by the menu; none printed |
| Holding a room | A per-person deposit on a credit card; thirty days’ notice for a refund | One room for one party, settled by email |
| Dress, as published | None published | Pub casual; dining room smart casual |
| Hours | Closed Mondays; Tuesday to Sunday from 11:30 a.m., Saturdays from 4:30 p.m.; last reservation 8:30 p.m. | None published |
| To arrange it | 519-753-3131, 1-888-448-3131, or info@oldeschoolrestaurant.ca | manager@thebrantfordclub.com or 519-752-0931 |
The Printed Menu and the Planned One
The Olde School Restaurant prints its group menus. Its group-menu page carries three dinner menus, one of them for seniors, each with soup of the day or a salad, homemade bread, potatoes and vegetables, the dessert of the day, coffee or tea, and a main from a list that includes prime rib, New York steak, pickerel, rack of lamb, and roast turkey. The Brantford Club prints no group menu because there is none to print. Executive chef Eric Wasylenky’s kitchen follows the season, and a private dinner’s courses are chosen ahead with the table’s preferences taken at booking; the Churchill Pork Chops, named for the guest who signed the Register on January 3, 1901, are the one fixed point. Every table is priced by the menu you settle, which is why no dollar figure appears on the Club’s private-dining page.
On group menus
The schoolhouse prints them, three dinner menus on one page with the mains listed, so a party of forty can choose before they arrive. The house plans the menu with you and prices the table by it, so there is nothing to print; the real numbers come with the answer to a date enquiry.
The Piano Bar and the Soft-Chair Room
The evening around the meal is where the two addresses part. The Olde School Restaurant is a piano bar as well as a restaurant, with a piano-vocal entertainer on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights as it lists them, and its home page mentions a collection of school-days memorabilia. That is a public floor with a public evening going on around your table, and a birthday of twelve may want exactly that. The Club’s evening belongs to the party that booked it, from a drink in the Bateson Lounge to the table and back to the soft chairs, with no other party walking through and none waiting for the seats. A retirement speech can run its full length here, and the Journal’s entry on giving one was written with a room like this in mind.
The schoolhouse on Powerline Road has seven rooms to fill by the night. The doctor’s house on George Street has set its table in the same rooms since 1898.
What the two doors get asked
Does The Olde School Restaurant have private rooms?
Yes. Its group-menu page lists seven private dining and banquet rooms, each with a different theme by its home page, offered for weddings, anniversaries, first communions, birthday parties, and business meetings. Reservations are by phone at 519-753-3131 or by email.
How is a private dinner at The Brantford Club arranged?
By email to manager@thebrantfordclub.com or a call to 519-752-0931, with the occasion, a preferred date, and roughly how many chairs. The room and the courses are then settled with the kitchen and your event coordinator, and a person answers as soon as they are able.
What are The Olde School Restaurant’s hours?
By its own listing it is closed Mondays and open Tuesday to Sunday from 11:30 in the morning, Saturdays from 4:30, with the last reservation at 8:30 at night. Its contact page gives 9:30 at night as the closing hour; a call confirms it for the evening you want.
Which is better for a large family party in Brantford?
The Olde School Restaurant is the answer for a family party of forty ordering off a printed group menu on a Sunday; it has seven rooms for that and has been doing it since 1982. The house at 98 George Street is the answer when one room is held for one party and the menu is planned with the kitchen.
How old are the two buildings?
The Olde School Restaurant’s building is a converted schoolhouse of the 1870s, once the Moyle School, as its pages say, and it has traded as a restaurant since 1982. The Club’s house at 98 George Street was of the mid-1850s, before the City was incorporated in 1877, and the Club has kept its rooms there since 1898.
Sources: The Olde School Restaurant and Piano Bar’s own home page, group-menu page, and contact page; the Club’s private-dining and policies pages; the Club’s centennial history for the purchase price and the Register. Other rooms in the city that take a party are in the Journal’s register of Brantford event venues. The Journal keeps all of these side-by-sides on a single register page.
The Brantford Club, 98 George Street, Brantford, Ontario N3T 2Y4 · Open in Google Maps
When the table is yours to plan
The schoolhouse will seat your forty on a Sunday without a word from us. When the dinner wants a room of the house and a menu settled with the kitchen, one email opens the conversation, and a person answers.
manager@thebrantfordclub.com · 519-752-0931 · Private dining at the Club
