Ouellette & Wyandotte – 1975

View Comments

• It looks like the top left corner visible in the above picture of the Douglas buliding was round. If so, I would doubt they would square in off in a rehab job.

• I was reading in the Windsor Star page C3 today that the new owners of 801 Ouellette Ave (formerly Club 801) bought it for $600,000 and are gutting the building and will have it demolished as soon as the city approves a demolition permit. It has some nice brickwork still on it and it looks like a fairly solid building. I heard it was an old furniture store. Anyone know the history of that building? I kinda like the architecture of that building. Does anyone think it's preservation worthy?

• Was that the old Jokers? If so it is really a neat building. The blond brick it interesting as are the transoms (if they are still there). You are correct it used to be a furniture store.
  Demolition in this city is $$$ with no regards to the past.

• It was once "Elliots on the Avenue" when downtown had some 1960s and 70s suaveness still intact, as this photo illustrates.

• Would that demolision permit include the never-again-inhabited Mother's restaurant attached to it? I always thought it must have been cursed :)

  What year did Mother's close? I'm guessing sometime in the late '70's/early '80's.

  I loved that place!

• I've always wondered the same thing about Mothers. Seems like after it closed up that building never was used again for anything else (to my knowledge). Someone said something about Jokers knocking out some walls and using it, not sure about that. But it was a great restaurant and I can't explain why it ever closed. They served great pizza, had neat decor with antiques, and were popular for birthday parties and things like that.

• The Shoppers' Drug Mart that sits on the corner of Ouellette and Wyandotte was built in the early 1980's to house Canada Trust's main office. The building was part of a larger development that included a high-rise building with underground parking attached to it. The high-rise was never built because the developer couldn't find enough tenants so the land ended up being used as a parking lot.

• I think it might have been mid-late 80's when Mother's closed. I have vague recollections of going there to get pizza when I was a kid.

  I still have a few of Mother's glasses that they used to serve floats in, then you could take the glass home (or my parents are thieves). If anyone would like to see them, for nostalgic purposes, I could take a picture. Does anyone have any pictures of the restaurant before it became a wall of white plywood?

• I'm thinking Mother's closed around '90 or '91. I specifially remember the last time I was there, and that was in '89. I remember that place so clearly, right down to the cigarette vending machine in the lobby, although that may have been gone by '89. When did cigarette vending machines become illegal anyway?

• Good question, WFW might be right. I moved to Windsor in 1989, and I swear it was still open when I first came here, it might even have closed in 1989.