The Journal · The Brantford Club

Speekezzies vs The Brantford Club: The Wine List and the Ledger

Speekezzies Cafe and Wine Bar is a public dining room at 415 Fairview Drive, Brantford, open by its own account Tuesday to Saturday from 4 in the afternoon, with a posted wine list and nightly wine features. The Brantford Club is a private club, its door at 98 George Street, where a private dinner takes one room of the house and pours from a cellar kept beside the dining room since 1898.

If the wine bar on Fairview Drive is what you came for, its own pages say this. Speekezzies Cafe and Wine Bar is at 415 Fairview Drive, Brantford, Ontario N3R 7M3, and the phone is 519-757-0621; the email its site lists is speekcafe@rogers.com. By its own listing it is open Tuesday to Saturday from 4 p.m. until close, the last reservation is taken at 7:45 p.m., lunch is closed, and Sunday and Monday are kept for private functions only. A table is booked by phone, and the contact page says reservations are appreciated and not required. A party that wants a glass from a printed list and the room’s own Friday around them can stop here and call. What follows is for the dinner that wants the courses settled beforehand and nobody else at the door.

A Wine List on Fairview Drive and a Ledger on George Street

Speekezzies Cafe and Wine Bar describes itself as Mediterranean casual fine dining, with a menu that leans Italian: wood-oven pizzas, pastas, and meat and seafood plates, by its own menu page. Its wine list is posted on its site, reds and whites by the glass, the half litre, and the bottle, with vintage and private import wines noted and an unlisted selection that turns over weekly; the list itself says to ask the server about the nightly features. The Brantford Club keeps a bar and a cellar beside its dining room at 98 George Street, and it has written down what they hold since the Edwardian years. In 1909 the Minutes recorded the stock brand by brand: John Jamesons XXX, Black and White, Gooderham and Worts, Guinness, and Bixell lager brewed in Brantford, with a drink at ten cents and rum refused in the Secretary’s own words. That page is read in full in the Journal’s entry on the bar ledger of 1909. One address publishes its list for whoever books tonight; the other has kept a ledger of its own bar for the same club, and pours from it for a private table.

Does The Brantford Club have a wine list?

Yes. The bar and the cellar at The Brantford Club sit beside the dining room, and the beverage menu on the Club’s menu page lists what they keep: wines, spirits, and craft beers chosen to go with what executive chef Eric Wasylenky is cooking. The cellar list on the same page is given as reds, whites, and aged whiskies, kept for the table and the lounge. The difference from a wine bar is in who reads it and when. On Fairview Drive the list is read at the table on the night. At 98 George Street a private dinner settles its courses with the kitchen before the date, and the wine follows the courses, so the list is read by the host in advance and the cellar is told what the evening needs. The Club has run its own bar since 1898, and it is a club’s bar, kept for members and the guests they bring in.

Fairview Drive for the Table That Orders from the List

Some dinners want a wine bar, and those belong on Fairview Drive. Six people who want to sit down at 6, read the list, ask about the nightly feature, order a wood-oven pizza for the middle of the table and a bottle to follow it have their answer at Speekezzies, and The Brantford Club would send them there. By its own site the wine bar also books private functions on a Sunday, takes groups of twenty-five or more as private dining by arrangement, helps with the event and menu planning, and caters off site; a call to 519-757-0621 settles the details. None of that is what the Club does. There are no published hours at 98 George Street, no take-out menu, and no Friday walk-in; a wine bar answers a Friday that a private club is not built to answer.

Speekezzies vs The Brantford Club, Glass by Glass

What each address publishes about itself is set out below, from the wine bar’s own pages and from the Club’s, as each site states it at the time of writing.

A Room of the House with the Courses Settled

A private dinner at The Brantford Club takes one room of an Italianate house of about 1855, already old when the City incorporated, and the room is the party’s for the evening. The house was the residence of Dr. John Y. Bown, a physician and Member of Parliament in the years around Confederation, and the Club bought it in 1898 for $4,500.00, per the Club’s centennial history. The evening starts with three things sent to manager@thebrantfordclub.com or said down the line at 519-752-0931: the occasion, a preferred date, and roughly how many chairs. The courses are then chosen with the kitchen ahead of the date, the table’s preferences are taken at booking, and the cellar is matched to the menu; no dollar figure sits on the Club’s private dining page because every table is priced by the menu it settles, and the real numbers come with the reply. A wine bar on a Saturday has a bar to run and a second seating to think about; the house on George Street has one table to think about, yours, and a person answers how it works.

What to know before you write

Sources: the Speekezzies Cafe and Wine Bar home page, its about page, contact page, and wine list; the Club’s private-dining and menu pages; the Club’s centennial history for the 1909 bar list and the purchase price. What smart casual means at the dining room door is walked through in the Journal’s reading of the Club dress code. Whoever is weighing a different door will find it among the thirty comparisons.