Writer: Erin Baldwin
Marlene Thorne first opened her west-end Toronto cocktail bar famous last words in 2016 after deciding she was ready to get out of the corporate world. Over the past four years flw has steadily grown their reputation as a book lover’s haven, hosting numerous book club meetings, trivia nights and book launches in their elegantly decorated literary space. While 2020 has thrown them — and everyone else — some major curveballs, flw opened a new curbside patio this summer and has adjusted to throwing virtual trivia nights on Zoom. Recently Marlene took the time to talk to us about the original inspiration for flw, the bar’s literary aesthetic and how they’ve been managing the pandemic.
Through reading online, I discovered you had a pretty solid career going in the corporate world before opening flw. Where did the initial inception for a book-themed cocktail bar come from and what role did your love of reading play?
I spent a lot of years in corporate marketing, working on some fun brands with some really wonderful people. When it was time for a change, I tried to think of moments when I'd been happiest and what came up time after time was all the opportunities I'd had to run events for our staff. I'd always enjoyed creating cocktails, setting up our hospitality suite and getting the chance to talk to everyone as they came to the bar for their drinks, and it turned out that I was pretty good at it. I'd been toying with the idea of opening a cocktail bar for a while and it all came together one night when I was out with friends: someone said 'famous last words’ in response to a comment and everything clicked in my brain. Timothy Findley is one of my favourite authors so his novel came immediately to mind. I thought about books and cocktails, and how perfect they'd be together, and flw was born. I've been a huge book lover my entire life, so this just seemed like a perfect evolution.
Were you influenced by any other book-themed bars or restaurants in Toronto or elsewhere? One that comes to my mind is Tequila Bookworm which, of course, sadly closed down at the end of last year.
Believe it or not, I didn't know about Tequila Bookworm until after we'd opened. Because I wanted what we were doing to be original, I didn't do any research online into similar businesses — but every now and again, someone will tell me how flw reminds them of a place they visited in Europe somewhere and it always sounds like great company to be included in. And it's so sad that Tequila Bookworm has closed— the city was losing great places long before COVID-19 because of a lot of economic factors and I shudder to think what this is going to do to so many of the spaces that make Toronto so special.
For anyone who hasn’t been to flw, how have books and the literary world influenced your bar’s overall aesthetic, design and, of course, cocktail offerings? I’m thinking of the menus and cocktail names, in particular.
Almost everything we do relates in some way to books: our menus themselves are little books, with individual chapters for each style of cocktail (Beach Reads, Adventures, Epics). Every drink is inspired by and named after a book, ranging from an earl grey and lavender gin sour called 'Everyone Brave is Forgiven' to a smoky scotch and mezcal old fashioned called 'City on Fire'. Our bar-top is made up of Scrabble tiles, which I guess is more about words than books, but I think it counts :) We have built-in bookshelves all across the back that hold hundreds of novels. Right in front of those we have booths that are perfect for book club meetings. In the 'before times' we'd present the check with a little library card, and even our washrooms reference authors: you can choose either the 'Jane Austen' or the 'Oscar Wilde' door.
Obviously, this year has seen some unprecedented hurdles for the bar and restaurant industry. How have you been coping with COVID-19 and in what ways are you evolving the business as a result?
It's definitely been a challenge! We were closed for four and a half months and just opened again at the beginning of August once we were able to get some substantial outdoor space. For now we're just doing patio seating and we've had to truncate our menu a little - as well as move it online. A lot of flw was really tactile, so the experience has changed a bit now that no one should be touching anything unnecessarily. It wasn't easy re-creating our cozy space outside on the street, but I think we've done a pretty good job.
I know that hosting events for book lovers like trivia nights and drop-in book clubs has been a staple of flw. Tell us about how you’ve been taking some of these events virtual and what the response has been like.
Trivia is a great example of how we've been able to pivot: it used to be live at the bar once a month and now it takes place over Zoom. Although we miss seeing people in person, it's opened it up to a lot of people who otherwise wouldn't have been able to attend because they live too far away. We also used to run literary-themed cocktail classes for groups and we've switched that to online as well. It's been really popular with corporate groups who are looking for ways for their teams to connect while everyone is working remotely.
On a personal level, what are some of your favourite books? Do you have any favourite genres or authors?
I have so many favourites! I read a lot of contemporary fiction and a fair amount of fantasy. I especially love anything funny — Christopher Moore and Douglas Adams are two of my all-time favourites. I grew up out East so I really enjoy a lot of Newfoundland authors like Michael Crummey, Donna Morrissey, Wayne Johnston, etc. and I'm obsessed with Timothy Findley and a slew of other Canadian writers. I'm definitely not a snob - give me a good murder-mystery and I'll usually finish it within a day or two!