Tom's Top 10 - Dining and Entertainment Listing - Restaurant / Night Clubs Guide to Newmarket / Aurora

Twenty years ago, as Entertainment Editor in Newmarket at Cover Story Newspaper York Region, I wrote a Tom's Top Ten List of Eateries / Dining Out guide section and listed my fave restaurants, often writing about the places listed through my food review-like diners column "Local Flavour" and about entertainment in "At The Clubs" including the York Region and Newmarket area nightclub listings.

Tom's Top 10
Here is a list of Tom's Top 10 hospitality establishments that combine entertainment and dining out within 10k radius of Newmarket.

Tom's Top 10 considers reputation, menu diversity, value, hospitality, quality and dancing / entertainment. They are in no particular order. 

Ole!

1 - Made In Mexico Restaurant & Cantina Tequila 185

Restaurant and Cantina,Tequila185, 185 Main St South 905-235-7722
#Tom Bits : Yeepa! Features home made food - even the tortilla's - that's the difference. Restaurant is upstairs, downstairs is the Night Club, Tequila 185. Fri, Sat features various from DJ to bands to comedy. 

2- The Sociable Pub   
The Sociable Pub
905-235-7782 17380 Yonge St Newmarket, Authentic Maritime Pub, Stick to your bones ribs...Live Entertainment weekends as well as Open Mic last Tuesday of every month. Friendly. Couple owned.

3- Villa Risi Ristorante - 
16995 Yonge St - 905-836-8062

Casual Italian fine dining with piano bar. Live Rythym &Blues weekends. Valentines & Special Menu Days.

Casual



4- Big Daddy's Rock & Roll Emporium,
446 Davis Dr 905-898-0001 Tom Bits : Former long time steak house location. Built-in stage, fair size. Theme nights, old time rock & roll with dancing venue. Reputable chicken wings.  Live Bands or DJ entertainment weekends.Definitely not upscale.

Tom's Top 10 Dining

5- Fionn MacCool's 17315 Leslie St 
905-898-7899
Restaurant  / Pub
Live Entertainment Thurs, Fri, Sat
Thursday $5 Craft Beer Night.
Home style pub food mm-made in-house!


Best Karaoke

6- Cynthia's Chinese Restaurant 
16715 Yonge St. 905-836-8113
Tom Bits: Newmarket's original karaoke restaurant & Tom's Top 10 list member. Now 3 restaurants and wear traditional imperial Chinese robes but not much else has changed, except their wine list has grown to exceptional! Still good food and service, but have added more entertainment to the slate Now Featuring Can G accompanying keyboards with Classic Rock, Rythm n Blues, Oldies, Latin and Soft Jazz Music.

More Great Karaoke!
7 - Friday nights Wild Wings 340 Eagle St  905-836-5454


Special Events / Halls -   

Stellar Hall 1220 Stellar Dr unit 205 905-830-9441

Special events, dinner theatre, full hall rental and staffing with on site catering availability. Tom Bits :Events hall, Renovated, gorgeous, reputable #Great Food. 20 years experienced hospitality. Dj Dances, Live Entertainment,  Dinner Theatre, Mother's Day Brunch, New Year's Eve Dinner & Party - 2015 / 16 - $75, includes Open Bar.

Edge of Town Live Weekend Entertainment 
8- King Richards Pub - 15570 Yonge St Aurora - 905-727-2337 - Live Entertainment Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Daily Specials.

Sat Nights Only now for Dancing here

9- Aurora - Dancing
The Graystones Restaurant & Lounge
14889 Yonge St 905-727-9561
New sign, but nothing much else has changed. Graystones Aurora is actually only open Saturday nights for 30+ Dancing w DJ, except on the rare occasion, although the restaurant part is open all week long. Odd quirk. Been that way for years. Popular Sat singles haunt.  Small town service. I remember reviewing the wiener schnitzel  for " Local Flavour"."T'was supoib" then. $5 Cover - $10 after midnight.

MorAurora!
10- Aw Shucks Steak Oyster Bar & Bistro
15230 Yonge St Aurora 905-727-5100
Tom Bits : 3rd year in roomy, beautiful  completely renovated, historic location. Hardwood Floors, outdoor upper level, heated patio. Seafood and steaks the house specialty.   

Live Entertainment weekends No Cover. Friday's are A.S.'s best night.
Boonie Pick, King City

Hogan's Inn 12998 Keele St, 905-833-5311
Tom Bits : A regular on Tom's original Top Ten eatery picks for CoverStory York Region 20 years ago. Longtime, infamous cuisine. Upscale dining. Beautiful, historic cobblestone house and setting. Features fine dining upstairs and the Hunt Pub downstairs with Live Entertainment such as Rhythm & Blues sensations Bad Dog

Taxi Service in York Region call 310 - 310 - 3

Toms Top TO Pick
#PartyAdviserGuru Val  of Parties Without Borders and Toot's Capital fame tells me.

You can check out her other TO picks here!
Tom's Top 10 Video!

Watch for TPE's Tom's Top 10 Restaurants, Pizza and  Tom's Top 10 Live Entertainment

Invite TP to visit and sample your hospitality and we'll cover you in an industry blog!

Or we can feature just you! We guarantee to rank highly in Google searches by people looking for restaurants or clubs of YOUR TYPE!

Tom The Temp

Newmarket Music Promoter Maurice Weeks Live Entertainment Nights

The life of a promoter or show event coordinator or record label evolves constantly, and a real promoter is always looking to do something bigger, and so when a good promoter is filling their venues to capacity with patrons, the natural progression is to find something bigger to put them into. That's the predicament event and music promoters / record label Arthur Jr Music, led by Arthur Weeks aka talented Hip Hop singer Maurice Weeks, along with partner / compatriot Dan Barker of 90 Nickel Entertainment, is experiencing right now. But these are growing pains of the excellent kind.

Let's face it, the ultimate for someone inclined to put live rock & roll, hip hop and other cool genre laiden shows together is to do bigger and better each time. Just look at the progression of rock concerts over the years. I actually had the honour recently of interviewing Johnny Brower, one of the guys who organized and promoted the first ever multi day concerts who happens also to be the same fellow who organized The Toronto Rock & Roll Revival concert of 1969 - the first ever concert John Lennon performed apart from the Beatles, and widely believed by those in the know as being the catalyst that broke them up. Hey, what can I say, that's who I hang with when they are producing the Pop69 movie about him. Ha. The irony of having driven around with the legendary icon a few months back and now being out with an eager group of young up and comer wannabe legends didn't escape me.

I tried to mention it to the three who'd accompanied me on the little road trip, including another indy records and entertainment Producer Carly Myers of ILLBROKEN (IB) Entertainment, while showing a potential site for an indoor / outdoor gig that holds up to 1000 people, but I think it was maybe too much at the time to take in as they were way loving the venue and already wondering aloud about the how to's and what if's.

Anyway, the 1st idea was to bring some kind of headliner in to cap off a day of bands including showcasing local bands who have stood out in band wars and Talent Search competitions. So it would showcase not only a top notch headlining act, but some very cool other bands as well.

TPE could perhaps hook in some great food from a couple of local businesses and a beer tent to seal the deal, and the event would have all the fixings of a fun time. TPE's been looking for someone that fits this bill for these types of venues to work on the entertainment side and believe these guys fit that bill way well. They also combine to have a tremendous following and combine that with the fact they have also brought some great new talent to the stage in Newmarket, Richmond Hill, Aurora and Markham too and are always looking to develop talent and introduce the coolest in music trends through their events, which I'm digging, and you get a recipe for a great time. 

Maurice tells me they just signed an exciting rapper artist to the label  also known to do little genre blending which is cool and maybe what the music festival will be come about.. a festival of merging rock, rap and hip hop styles..thrown in amongst some traditional styles - A celebration of Rock Music history if you will!...So stay tuned for sum of dat shit y'mean!? It's all rock & roll to me.Ha.

These guys are at the ground level forefront of the music scene today - just like Johnny Brower was in his and am excited to see this show to completion and what kind of talent line up these guys put together should so stay tuned!


....With a hip, hop, a hippity hippity hop, and a hip, hop, hippityhophop! 

TP Out

At The Clubs Newmarket and Video Highlights of Tom's Top 10 Entertainment

Stellar Hall & Event Centre Feb 14 and 15th Dance Events

Wow what a week in entertainment and action! Tom's Top 10 New Years Eve Guide was so successful it made sense to keep the service for people searching online for an area Dining and Entertainment Guide. In the 1st week the listing  has received 200 views from people searching for those terms! Now that is targeted search marketing! Just punch into your computer - " Dining Entertainment Newmarket" or " Entertainment Guide" or " Toms Top 10" or any combination therein and a Tom's Top 10 listing pops up onscreen! Powerful stuff.

Meantime, my vision for Tom's Top 10 fits in with TPE Productions, with all the promotion, band / event bookings and video productions involved.TPE plans to put together interesting videos of the various hotspots and the action happening onstage, as well as continue to add fun new additions like TP's industry comics and other tombits to keep things interesting.

I'm looking forward to a couple of events upcoming such as the TPE DRYDance Production, a dance at Stellar Hall Sat Feb 15 featuring The Yappers fresh from playing The famous El Mocambo and dance music DJ style between sets A la carte menu available. Stellar Hall & Events Centre is also featuring a Feb 14 Valentines Night Special Dinner, Dance and Show with award winning dance troupe @ only $70 per couple.

TPE is also putting on a show at Big Daddy's Rock & Roll Emporium Fri March 14 for The Opening Face off Party featuring Clean Fill Wanted and The Yappers. $5 cover charge. I caught a show there last week and it featured a young up and coming band called This Side Up which TPE captured on video. Drum  and guitar work worth seeing!

TPE is involved in organizing the Friendly Neighbourhood Youth Road hockey Challenge and working towards a suitable location to hold the event, with construction presently hindering the original proposed spot. TPE is working with cooperative partners such as Newmarket Councilor Joe Sponga and Newmarket sports store owner Gerry Ertl as well as Highwayy 11 Cruisers Car Club member Danny Fachino, PACC Vice Chair Dan Philion and other interested parties and hopefully we can solve this dilemma - soon!

I managed to pop into a number of places in the past few weeks like Villa Risi Ristorante, and caught some great singing / piano act! Col Mustard's for karaoke, Pirates Cove, Big Chris BBQ, and Stellar Hall and you can catch some of what I captured on our Tom's Top 10 Entertainment highlights video!
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The Yappers Live at Stellar Hall Sat Feb 15 Tickets $12 Advance $10 289-221-0928

Tom Out

Toms Top 10 Entertainment and Restaurant Mother's Day Hot Spots!

Stellar Hall and Event Centre

Newmarket Area Restaurant and Entertainment Tom's Top 10 Guide
Recently I had the fortune of getting out and about during the holidays and new year's season and it spurred me on a wee bit so to speak. First I created a New Year's Eve Guide which went so well, I decided to create a listing Guide of Top 10 choices of restaurants and clubs that offer
both entertainment and good food fare.

I realized there was no reliable place to source local restaurants for night out entertainment and dancing that would also be a good place to eat..or neither for that matter!

Villa Risi has a beautiful Piano Bar too

At any rate, I managed to pop into a few places that had been interested to get on the list and sounds like they all have some cool stuff upcoming.including weekends classic rock live entertainment at Big Chris BBQ, formerly Orleans, and a Valentines Dinner and Dance Feb 14 at Stellar Hall as well as a Drydance Production Feb 15 and Villa Risi features Live Rythm N Blues Entertainment as well!

TOM'S TOP 10 GUIDE

 
New Years Eve went off without a hitch with hosts Highway 11 Car Club, the place filling up over the last few days, and the club hosts putting on a great time. Rob the DJ seemed to really have the groove with the dance floor always busy and have to hand it to him. Really a good buzz in the room and door prizes rounded out the fun along with some poker play.

Shortly thereafter I somehow got stung to come in and help out Stellar Hall & Event Centre with a private function birthday featuring..drum roll...an all male review! Ha. That was a blast from behind the scenes! Women are crazier than men when it comes to these things.Ha. but in a yahoo fun kind of way....I think...Ha...anyway to the sweet girl who thought I looked like Eric Roberts..Nice try! What kind of a guy do you think I am young lady!? You're right!!!! Doh!

Sailor Jerry Party Jan 17

Also dropped into Big Chris BBQ - yes there really is a Big Chris - and on top of all theweekend live entertainment they have - they have some other cool events on the slate such as a Tues Jams,Sailor Jerry tastings and some hot tub parties for April were mentioned! I'll keep you informed!

Beautiful decor at Villa Risi Ristorante

I never knew Villa Risi was so beautiful inside, well I guess I knew but it had been awhile. 
Peter tells me he has a great line up of entertainers from Rythym n Blues to classic rock to piano and invited me to check it out this Friday night I'm looking forward to it and it's - a gorgeous room for someone to showcase their talent!

I have a wack more places to visit in the next few days and am planning to pop in and test / see some of the Newmarket area entertainment and hospitality upcoming this weekend! Stay tuned!

TP Out!