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The Rivoli is a bar, restaurant and performance space, established in 1982, on Queen Street West in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
The club originally earned a reputation as one of Canada's hippest music clubs,
"[...] Gowan, who, on the phone anyway, seems more the affable hockey-and-beer type than a denizen of such desperately hip clubs as Montreal's Beat and Toronto's Rivoli."
and many major Canadians comedy and musical performers have played on its stage, including The Kids in the Hall, Gordon Downie, The Frantics, Sean Cullen and the infamous Dark Shows. The Drowsy Chaperone premiered at the Rivoli and went on to subsequent productions and eventually a highly successful run on Broadway.
The audience area is sometimes open for standing room, sometimes tables and chairs are set up, and sometimes chairs are set up in rows. Seating is rarely assigned or reserved. Patrons are typically free to eat or drink in the front room without paying for admission to shows. The Rivoli's menu is known for an eclectic and upscale motif.
The Rivoli sign, seen outside the club on Queen Street West, features the handwriting of musician Mary Margaret O'Hara.
By January 1985, the troupe found its core five on-stage players—Foley, McDonald, McCulloch, McKinney, and Thompson—who began performing a lot more frequently at the Rivoli as part of comedian Briane Nasimok's comedy night showcase on Mondays, eventually taking it over for themselves. On McCulloch's insistence, the group decided to do a fresh stage show every week at the venue—getting together on Fridays after finishing their full-time day jobs and coming up with an hour worth of material by Monday night. Their 2-hour Monday night Rivoli shows consisted of an hour of new material followed by an hour of improv.
Though initially performing for small audiences of 10 to 15 people, the troupe kept on with their Monday night Rivoli shows, and, over the years that followed, continued developing a quirky and surreal sketch comedy repertoire—distinct from other Toronto comedy staples, the Second City and Yuk Yuk's. Building an audience proved difficult due to the group's insistence on not repeating previously-performed material; they often faced situations with individual audience members liking them one Monday and returning the following week, bringing more people along, only to then be disappointed by not recognizing any of the sketches. To that end, during spring 1985, the Kids decided to temporarily break with their new-material-every-week practice by doing a 'best of' week, which they were accommodated for by the Rivoli owners that in addition to Monday, also allowed them to perform on the more coveted Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. Within a few months, the Kids would be noticed by the Saturday Night Live scouts and its co-creator and returning producer Lorne Michaels, an established Toronto-raised show business insider who, following an audition that also took place at the Rivoli, proceeded to hire McCulloch and McKinney as writers for SNL's 1985-86 season. Three years later, in fall 1988, he put the entire troupe on television as a 25-minute sketch show television pilot on CBC Television in Canada and HBO in the United States, leading to it being picked up as a series in 1989 by both networks.
From 1987 to 1990, the Journal of Wild Culture held its regular avant-garde vaudeville nights, the Café of Wild Culture, featuring a mix of artists exploring the magazine's ecology and imagination mandate.
Canadian music legend Neil Young played a private concert at The Rivoli on November 10, 2023. The event was a 50th birthday celebration for the billionaire CEO of the Canada Goose clothing company, Dani Reiss. Arkells also played at the event.
In May 2022, on the occasion of The Kids in the Hall television show returning after 27 years, the Rivoli unveiled a plaque honouring the troupe and recognizing its association with the venue.
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