This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

One night in 1981, Jac and Beth Eckhardt were sitting on the dusty, bare wooden floor of the space they had just bought (“with mostly borrowed money, when interest rates were, like, 18 per cent,” Beth says) on Mt. Pleasant Road, south of Eglinton. Celebrating with a bottle of champagne, they were planning to make it the new home of their successful artisan craft business, The Little Dollhouse Company – until Beth, in an unguarded moment, looked around and said, “This would make a really beautiful restaurant.”

“So, let’s do it then,” Jac replied.

And they did. Forty years later, Phebe’s remains a midtown institution.

Originally Phebe’s Diner (Ontario’s liquor laws of the day wouldn’t allow the word “bar”), it would eventually be permitted to go by Phebe’s Oyster Bar, Toronto’s first to feature a variety of oysters displayed on beds of shaved ice. Today it’s known as Phebe’s Zee Grill, Dutch for “sea grill,” a nod to Jac’s heritage.

From the start, Jac and Beth had seafood in their DNA. She came from the east of Canada (Pictou, N.S.), he from the west coast of the Netherlands (The Hague). Jac learned to make pastries and desserts from his father, later honing his culinary skills in the kitchens of trans-Atlantic freighters, which also carried passengers for whom fine dining was de rigueur.

They met in 1972. “He literally picked me up,” she says, recounting how 28-year-old Jac gave 18-year-old Beth and her friend a ride when they were hitchhiking their way from the Toronto waterfront after the Mariposa Music Festival (then held on Centre Island) to Egerton’s nightclub, a folkie hangout of the day.

At that time, Jac was a singer, signed (as Jack Cornell) to RCA Records of Canada. He was on his way to a recording session when he first encountered his future wife.

Jac and Beth became not only a couple but also entrepreneurs, conceiving and building The Little Dollhouse Company (sold to new owners in 1986, it remains in business today), before taking the plunge into the restaurant world.

The Phebe’s name came from an artists’ hangout Jac and Beth loved to visit in Manhattan. It’s also an amended spelling of Jac’s favourite fishing lure, the Phoebe.

From day one, Jac has been the chef and designer-builder of the restaurant’s decor, always tinkering with the menu and the house alike. Beth is the sommelier and general manager. Daughters Carleton, 36, and Broidy, 34, literally grew up in the restaurant, later helping as hostesses and servers. Ten-month-old grandson Hendrik is already a regular.

Phebe’s proved popular from the outset, with North Toronto residents and as an after-work haven for staff from the area’s pubs and restaurants. Over the years, notables from sports, television and film have come for dinner, including Toronto Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston; Leafs greats Doug Gilmour, Darryl Sittler and Eddie Shack; Hollywood legend Lauren Bacall (with her papillon dog, Sophie, tucked in her purse); SCTV icons Eugene Levy and Dave Thomas; and first- and second-generation Blues Brothers Dan Aykroyd, Jim Belushi and John Goodman.

As with most long-lasting restaurants, it’s the regulars who have been central to Phebe’s’ success, sticking with Jac and Beth through recessions and the PEI tainted-mussels calamity of 1987, and helping them recover from the ice storm of 1998, the blackout of 2003 and the COVID-19 pandemic that forced them into the takeout-only business for several months.

They’re now seating a third generation, with long-time patrons turning up with grandchildren in tow.

“Just recently, there was a man at the bar with his wife and their young child,” says Jac. “He called me over and said, ‘I don’t live in Toronto anymore, but I used to come here with my father, and we would sit here at the bar and have oysters.’ And I still remember that, because this kid was only about eight years old back then, and he loved oysters!”

So, what’s the secret to four decades of success in the often-unpredictable restaurant business?

“Consistency … and insanity!” Beth says with a laugh.

“Perseverance,” says Jac. “You have some bad times, but you just push through. And passion. If you are a composer or a writer and you get stale and you get this so-called block – that has more to do with not being passionate. If you’re passionate about what you do, you’re always thinking about it, and you’ll never lose it.”

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com