Honest Ed’s A Legendary Toronto Icon

It was much like the man himself – sometimes disheveled, often loud and never boring. The sign on the front of the store that Ed Mirvish started in 1948 says it all: “there’s no place like this place, anyplace.” Honest Ed’s is as much of a Toronto landmark as the CN Tower or new City Hall. And it’s been there longer than both of them.

He opened the legendary establishment in 1948 at the otherwise non-descript corner of Bloor and Bathurst. Its first day of business was a Saturday, and quickly provided a sign of things to come – the place was mobbed from the moment the doors were unlocked to the minute they closed that night. It quickly became one of the centrepoints of the city, reflecting its owner’s personality to a “T”. It began before you even stepped into the building, with the world’s largest electric sign boasting “Honest Ed’s” in brightly coloured lights.

“How cheap can a guy get?” read one banner that stretched around the building, which was expanded to take up three quarters of a city block in 1988. “Come in and find out. “

“Only the floors are crooked,”  contended a second, while a third asked you to “Come on in and get lost.”

Once you did, you entered a place unlike any other in the world. The building was and remains a crazy quilt of staircases that lead to nooks and crannies, crammed with tables. There were no fancy displays, no real organized departments. Shirts would be scattered haphazardly on one counter, towels on another. And there were items nobody else would stock – like those ubiquitous busts of Elvis, still one of the store’s bestsellers. There was little packaging and none of the merchandising you’d see in a more upscale place like Eaton’s or Simpson’s. It was Mirvish’s way of keeping prices down, a ‘no-frills’ lesson it would take other retailers decades to copy.

But none did it with his showbiz panache. There were hand painted signs everywhere, done by a long time employee in a back office. “Don’t just stand there, buy something!” one entreated. Many made fun of Ed himself, adding to his legendary persona. “Honest Ed is pie-eyed,” a printed message explained. “But his prices don’t need shortening.” At a sign alerting shoppers that pen knives were on sale for just five cents, came a handwritten caveat emblazoned in red ink. “Satisfaction guaranteed,” it read, “or your 5 cents back.” And then there was the bargain assurance that pleaded “Don’t faint at our low prices – there’s no place to lie down!”

But unlike his competitors, Mirvish resisted the urge to franchise his business, keeping the one store in the one place, making it truly unique. If you wanted the bargains, you had to come to him. Millions did.

It was all part of a lesson the entrepreneur learned at the knee of his father, who ran a grocery store in downtown Toronto in the 1920s. He recalled his dad as a wonderful man but not a great business expert. His first job came when he helped stock the place at the age of nine. On Sundays, he would go round to customers collecting what they owed, but noted painfully that few would answer their doors. It was then he realized his father would give just about anyone credit – a fact that made him popular but kept the family poor and the store on the edge of financial failure.

Ed learned from that, and when he open his own business, his policy was firm – no credit, no refunds, no exchanges and no deliveries. It helped to keep prices down, profits up and it never seemed to bother the customers. But as his fortunes grew, his personality never changed. Mirvish never forgot his humble beginnings and despite being one of the city’s richest men, would report for duty at his little empire on Bathurst St. every day until a bout with pneumonia in 2003 forced him to stay out of the public eye. “It was an unusual year because I never miss a day at work,” he admitted.

Now those who worked for him and shopped with him will miss his days at work. The store will remain an icon in Toronto’s downtown, a tribute to the former stock boy who learned a big lesson about big business – but never forgot the common touch.