The Journal · The Brantford Club

Sanderson Centre vs The Brantford Club: The Dinner Before the Curtain

The Sanderson Centre for the Performing Arts is the City of Brantford’s theatre at 88 Dalhousie Street, opened as the Temple Theatre in 1919, box office 519-758-8090. The Brantford Club, at 98 George Street since 1898, holds a private room a few blocks away for the dinner before a show: eight at one table, sixteen at the long one upstairs.

Tickets for the Sanderson Centre are sold three ways, as its box office page sets out: online at any hour, by telephone at 519-758-8090 or toll-free at 1-800-265-0710, and in person at the Dalhousie Street box office, open Monday to Saturday from noon to 5 p.m. and on show days until an hour past curtain. The main doors are on Darling Street, where a second box office opens an hour before showtime. The address is 88 Dalhousie Street, Brantford, Ontario N3T 2J2; accessible seating is booked by phone. All of that is from the Sanderson’s own pages, read in September 2026. The rest is for the party that wants to sit down before the show.

The Temple Theatre of 1919, in the Sanderson’s Own Telling

The Sanderson Centre for the Performing Arts is a theatre the City of Brantford owns, one of the historic buildings in Brantford a visitor can walk into, and its history page tells the building’s story in five dates. It opened as the Temple Theatre on December 22, 1919, designed by the Scottish architect Thomas W. Lamb as a vaudeville and silent-picture house. Famous Players bought it in 1929 and renamed it the Capitol in 1930. The City bought the building in 1986, a volunteer campaign paid for the restoration of the auditorium, and during that work the theatre took the Sanderson name in memory of the Sanderson family, who had supported the restoration. This month its home page announces a fortieth-anniversary open house on October 2 and its 2026 to 2027 season.

Where does a party of eight dine before a show at the Sanderson Centre?

A party of eight to sixteen going to the Sanderson can hold its dinner in a private room at The Brantford Club, 98 George Street, a few blocks from Dalhousie Street, with the menu done by the Club’s kitchen and the courses planned to the curtain. The Brantford Club is a private members’ club kept in the former residence of Dr. John Y. Bown, an Italianate house of about 1855, and its dining rooms have served that address since 1898. A theatre party takes one of the upper rooms: the Small Dining Room seats eight, and the Large Dining Room takes sixteen at the long table, by the Club’s hosting sheet. You do not need to be a member to book a room. The enquiry goes to Club Manager Sabrina Van Leeuwen at manager@thebrantfordclub.com with the show, the date, and the count; the rest of what the house hosts is set out where the Club takes its bookings.

The Show Is the Sanderson’s

Everything about the performance belongs to the Sanderson, and the Club has no part in it. The seats, the curtain time, the interval, and the bar are the theatre’s: its guest-services page says the auditorium is fully licensed and that the lower lobby bar opens at the interval for many events. A couple going to a Tuesday concert needs none of what this entry describes. They buy two tickets and have the evening the theatre was restored to give. Group tickets for ten or more go through its group sales page. The Club’s part starts and ends at the table.

Sanderson Centre vs The Brantford Club on a Show Night

The Private Room Before the Curtain

A pre-theatre dinner at The Brantford Club is booked by the hour and planned backward from the curtain. The host gives the house the show and its start time when the room is booked, and the kitchen, under executive chef Eric Wasylenky, can plan the courses to finish with time to spare for the walk to Dalhousie Street. The menu is settled beforehand, so nobody is reading a card at seven o’clock, and the party’s dietary needs are taken at booking. The terms are plain. A deposit equal to the room fee holds the date. All food and drink come through the Club’s kitchen and bar, except a celebration cake, which carries a plating fee. The booked hours are settled with the date, with an overtime fee past them, so a party that means to walk back to a table still its own after the final curtain should say so in the enquiry.

Two December Openings, Twenty-One Years Apart

The two doors opened in the same month, twenty-one Decembers apart. The Sanderson’s history page gives December 22, 1919 for the Temple Theatre’s first night. The Brantford Club’s centennial history gives December 31, 1898 for the Club’s: a New Year’s Eve, “a bitter cold winter evening, warmed only by the heat from the fireplaces and refreshments.” The Club had bought the Bown house at George and Nelson Streets that year for $4,500.00. Winston Churchill signed the Register on January 3, 1901, eighteen years before the theatre’s first vaudeville bill. Both buildings stand where they opened and are still in the work they were opened for, one selling seats on Dalhousie Street and one setting a table on George Street. The streets around both are walked in the Journal’s entry on historic downtown Brantford.

Asked on the way to the theatre

Sources: the Sanderson Centre’s own home page, history page, box office page, getting-here page, guest-services page, and group sales page, read in September 2026; the Club’s private-dining, book-the-club, and policies pages and its hosting sheet; the Club’s centennial history for the opening night and the Register. The rest of the series is gathered on a page of the city’s other doors, each set beside this one.