Historic Venue Spotlight: Windsor Hotel

In downtown Winnipeg, amidst new and redeveloped high rise buildings, next to empty surface parking lots, stand a few scattered relics of the past that refuse to die. When night falls on the Heart of the Continent, from the dark depths of one such relic, the old Windsor Hotel and Blues Bar, comes a rumbling sound.

That rumbling sound draws skids and students, punks and old boozers in a timeless migration, from every corner of the city and far beyond the perimeter, in much the same way as it has since the hotel opened its doors at 187 Garry Street back in 1903. And no matter how the downtown, or the venue itself, changes, the people keep coming.

In 1913, Charlie Chaplin stayed at the Windsor during one of his final vaudeville tours. In the 1970s and early 80s, the bar played host to blue collar drinkers looking to hear some country music and maybe watch a few ladies dance. When Rick Penner became a part owner in 1986, downtown was changing once again.

“That crowd was waning,” Penner, who sold his partnership in the Windsor in 2006, told Noisey. “I pitched my ideas about doing blues. I was a big blues fan and I knew a bunch of the guys in the local bands. Our clientele had a large proponent of country & western fans, and blues wasn’t a far push”

At the time, the Windsor had a capacity of “maybe 100.” They began booking local blues bands, like Big Dave McLean, Brent Parkin, and Billy Joe Green on the weekends, then throughout the week. By the early 90s, the dimly lit joint was bumping on the reg. “We realized we were just far too packed,” Penner said. “We couldn’t grow and get the kind of bands that I wanted to get the business we wanted.”

In 1994, the Windsor expanded. While nearly doubling their capacity (to a whopping 180 seats), the room began booking national and international blues artists and remained packed most nights. Powder Blues, Downchild Blues, Long John Baldry, performed regularly over the years, while Colin James, Jeff Healy, and Big Dave McLean had impromptu jam one evening that lasted for hours.

“That was pretty awesome,” Penner said with a chuckle. “Dan Aykroyd came in about seven or eight times. He actually did his Elwood Blues thing with Downchild when he was in town filming that Avro Arrow movie.”

When asked about his philosophy of running a live music space with a diverse clientele, Penner said it was simple. He’d tell patrons, “I don’t care about how much money you got. This is your place. Equate it to your rec room. You respect it, you treat it with respect, and everyone will respect you.”

“Rick Penner knew how to host an evening,” Jay Nowicki, of Winnipeg’s blues band The Perpetrators, told Noisey. “He’d shake everyone’s hand, go around to every table. He was one of those guys who could bounce somebody just by looking disappointed! He didn’t have to be a big tough guy.”

Nowicki got his start playing in a blues band in high school at the Blue Note Café around the corner from the Windsor. One of the first bar gigs he ever got was at the Windsor. “It was a great experience,” said Nowicki, who continues to play the Windsor stage upon occasion, with the Perpetrators or alongside fellow blues-rocker Romi Mayes.

But, as always, though, things was changin’ in downtown Winnipeg. Following the heyday of the blues bar in the 90s, Penner moved on from the Windsor in 2006. Today, he runs the Royal George in Transcona, MB.

Sam Smith, who booked the talent at the Royal Albert Arms until it closed unexpectedly in 2011. But when he found himself unemployed after another staple of live music, the Lo Pub, closed in 2012, the time seemed right to open the Windsor Blues Bar, which had seen a decline in attendance, to some new musical options.

“I got my lab coat out and started experimenting with a few things here,” Smith told Noisey over a couple cold Molsons one afternoon amidst the vintage beer lights and the classic signed headshots of blues legends that line the Windsor’s walls. Echoing Penner’s philosophy on what makes a good live music room, Smith said he, “I just wanted to just make a room where all people feel welcome.”

Today, the Windsor operates primarily as a presentation room, where locals can book a night and put a bill together, or Smith can bring in “national or international acts, DJ nights, or “whatever. Provided it can be a mutually beneficial experience for the audience, the performers, and the bar.” Smith says, “If everybody’s happy, everybody wins.”

The eclectic approach has seen acts as diverse as the New Orleans based Rebirth Brass Band to Scandinavian improvisational jazz trio The Thing, Saskatoon’s Shooting Guns to Kingston’s PS I Love You, and local heavy hitters like Propagandhi and KENmode playing to packed houses. Dirtballs like BA Johnston or Fubar’s Dean Murdoch have been noted to party late into the hours in the Windsor, and every weekend there’s bound to be something weird happening down on Garry Street.

“The reward for me is when people just stumble into something they knew would be different,” Smith explained. Still, Smith says, “There isn’t a night that goes by that I’m working the door where somebody doesn’t show up and starts talking about this place they remember from 15 or 20 years ago, which obviously speaks to what a huge and important hub this place was.”

“The Windsor’s got a warm, homey feeling,” Penner told Noisey. “It’s kind of like comfort food, you have stew when it’s 40 below. That’s kind of like coming to the Windsor.” And while the bulk of the music booked down at the Windsor may have changed – they still host popular weekly Saturday afternoon blues jams—the place still retains much of the charms that made it a popular destination 10, 20, 30 years ago.

“The way it is now is much the way it was then,” Nowicki recalled with a knowing laugh. “A no frills, friendly beer joint with pretty college girls sitting next to, or up dancing with, these rough around the edges Bukowski type characters who live in the hotel above the bar. I think it’s very important to have a room like that. It’s not close to a blues bar like it was, but at least it’s a healthy, exciting live music room.”

Sheldon Birnie is Winnipeg's international man of history - @badguybirnie