Wayne Gretzky's Toronto

Neighbourhood: Entertainment District / King West · Address: 99 Blue Jays Way, Toronto, ON M5V 9G9 · Hours: Mon–Thu 11:30AM–10PM | Fri–Sat 11:30AM–11PM | Sun 11AM–9PM · Price Range: $$ · Phone: (416) 348-0099 · Website: https://gretzkys.com

Why Visit

If you love sports, you'll love watching a Leafs OT win surrounded by fans who care just as much as you do. The rooftop patio is a Toronto summer classic for downtown people-watching and pre-game drinks.

What Makes It Unique

Few other sports bars in Toronto let you eat wings beneath a life-size Gretzky mural and actual memorabilia—this place feels like a living room for local sports culture. The atmosphere gets intense during game days, but in a way that feels communal, not just rowdy. The rooftop patio stands out as one of the best sports-watching patios anywhere in downtown.

Wayne Gretzky’s Toronto is one of those places that sounds like it should be a tourist gimmick, but somehow isn’t. It’s loud, a little bit chaotic, proudly sports-obsessed, and exactly the kind of room where a game can take over the entire mood of the evening. If you’re the sort of person who likes your pre-game drinks to feel like part of the event, this place absolutely works. If you’re not into sports, you can still have a decent night here, but you should know what you’re walking into: this is very much a Toronto sports bar first, a restaurant second, and a nostalgia museum somewhere in the mix.

The first thing you notice is how much there is to look at. The place is packed with Wayne Gretzky memorabilia, and not in a subtle way. There are signed jerseys, framed photos, old sticks, trophies, magazine covers, and all the little bits of Gretzky history that make hockey fans slow down and actually stare at the walls instead of their phones. It feels like the kind of room where every table has a story attached to it, even if you’re just there for a burger and a beer before a Blue Jays game. The design is big and open, with two floors and plenty of screens, so even when it’s crowded you still feel connected to the game. There’s always at least one group hollering at a TV, someone getting up to order another round, and a few people taking photos with the memorabilia because, honestly, that’s part of the fun.

What makes it work is that it doesn’t try too hard to be polished. A lot of sports bars in Toronto either lean too far into the flashy downtown crowd or get so focused on screen count that they forget the room itself should feel good. Wayne Gretzky’s lands in that middle ground where it knows exactly what it is. The menu is straightforward in the best way: pub food, burgers, wings, fries, pints, and the usual comfort-food lineup that people actually want before a game or after work. The Gretzky Burger is the obvious order for a reason; it’s the sort of thing you want with a cold Canadian when you’re settling in for a long night of watching hockey or baseball. Nothing here is trying to surprise you with foam or tiny garnishes, and that’s kind of the point. You come here for reliable food, quick service, and the feeling that everyone around you is watching the same thing at the same time.

The energy changes depending on when you go. At lunch or earlier in the afternoon, it’s more relaxed and a bit easier to get a table without feeling like you’ve arrived in the middle of a rush. You’ll see a mix of office types from the King West and Entertainment District area, a few tourists who recognized the name, and local regulars killing time over a beer before heading somewhere else. Early evening is when it starts to build. The soundtrack gets louder, the screens matter more, and people start arriving in clusters with jerseys on and plans already in motion. By the time a Leafs, Jays, or Raptors game is about to start, the place turns into a proper gathering spot. It gets busy fast, and the crowd is usually there for the same reason: they want to be around other people who actually care about the score.

The rooftop patio is the thing people talk about, and for good reason. In the summer, it’s one of the better places in the area to have a casual drink while the city hums below you. There’s a certain Toronto summer formula that works every time: a warm evening, a cold beer, maybe a game on in the background, and that feeling that everyone on the patio is trying to squeeze as much fun as possible out of the weather. Before Blue Jays games, the rooftop can fill up quickly, and on playoff nights it’s even more intense. It’s the kind of patio where people come in already excited, not just looking for somewhere to sit. You’ll see groups making a full afternoon of it, people in team gear taking selfies, and friends lingering longer than they planned because nobody wants to leave once the atmosphere gets going. If you’re trying to go in the summer, the patio is absolutely the play, but you’ll want to get there early if the weather is good and the game matters.

The neighbourhood matters here too. Being on Blue Jays Way puts it right in the middle of one of the most aggressively social parts of downtown Toronto. You’re close to the Rogers Centre, close to the CN Tower, close to King West bars, and right in the path of anyone heading to a game, a concert, or a night out. That means the crowd is always mixed, but in a pretty predictable way. On game days, you’ll see fans filtering in from every direction. On weekends, the pre-drink crowd becomes more obvious, especially people using the place as a launchpad before heading to a club, a concert, or another bar nearby. It’s not a quiet dining destination, and it’s not really trying to be one. Its whole advantage is that it sits in a part of the city where people already want to be social, already want screens, and already want something easy before the next stop.

Compared with a lot of other sports bars around downtown, Wayne Gretzky’s has a few things that make it stand out. First, the memorabilia gives it a more distinct identity than the generic “wall of TVs and wings” approach. You feel like you’re in a specific place, not just any sports bar that happens to be near the action. Second, the rooftop patio gives it a summer advantage that many of its competitors can’t match. In this part of the city, that matters a lot. And third, it has a kind of broad appeal that makes it easier to bring different people together. Hardcore hockey fans love it because of the Gretzky angle and the game-day energy. Casual visitors like it because it’s easy, lively, and recognizable. Groups like it because there’s room to spread out and nobody feels out of place ordering a burger, fries, and a round of pints. That combination isn’t rare, but it’s done well here.

There’s also something very Toronto about the crowd. This isn’t the sort of place where everyone is pretending to be cooler than the game. People actually react. They cheer, groan, argue about calls, and check scores on their phones even while the TV is right in front of them. If Toronto teams are winning, the room gets noticeably happier, and if they’re losing, the shared disappointment becomes part of the evening in the oddly comforting way sports bars handle disappointment. That’s probably the real appeal: you’re not watching alone, and the collective mood makes everything feel more amplified. If you’ve never experienced a Toronto crowd reacting to a big Jays or Leafs moment, this is a pretty good place to understand how intense and entertaining that can be.

Practically speaking, it helps to have a plan. If you want a table for a big game, don’t assume you can just walk in and sit wherever you want, especially if it’s a weekend or a playoff night. Wait times can get real, and the patio makes that even more competitive in warm weather. Arriving early is the best strategy by far, especially if you want a spot with a clear view of a screen or you’re meeting a larger group. If you’re just stopping in for a quick drink before heading elsewhere, you’ll probably be fine, but even then the room can fill faster than you’d expect. Service is generally built for volume, so it’s efficient, but on peak nights you should expect a bit of lag because everyone has the same idea at the same time.

The honest reality is that this place works best when you lean into its purpose. It’s not the spot for a quiet catch-up, a long romantic dinner, or a meal where you want to linger without background noise. It’s for pre-game drinks, for people who like sports to feel communal, for big groups that want a reliable place to gather, and for summer nights when a patio seat and a cold beer feel more important than anything else on the calendar. The food is solid rather than memorable, but the burger and beer combo does exactly what it should. The atmosphere is the draw, and the atmosphere is strong enough that it can carry the whole experience. If you show up with the right expectations, it’s an easy place to recommend. If you don’t care about sports, you might still have a fun night, but you’ll probably leave thinking the best part was the energy in the room rather than anything on your plate.

So if you’re in Toronto and want somewhere that feels connected to the city’s sports identity without being overly polished or precious about it, Wayne Gretzky’s Toronto makes sense. Go before a game, go with a group, go when the patio is open, and go with enough time to settle in. Order the Gretzky Burger, grab a pint, look around at the memorabilia, and let the crowd do its thing. That’s really the whole formula here, and it works because it doesn’t pretend to be anything else.