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Heritage

Bitove Corporation

Closed wound down after the 1990s–2000s

Catering & food services · Toronto · Greater Toronto Area

Formed in 1989 by merging the Pearson Airport operation with the SkyDome fine-dining concession Bitove had won two years earlier with a five-million-dollar commitment, the Bitove Corporation fed Toronto at scale: the airport terminals, the stadium, Roy Thomson Hall, VIA Rail's club cars, hospital and highway service contracts. It was called one of Canada's largest privately held food-service companies.

John Bitove Sr. was appointed to the Order of Canada the same year the corporation was born, and the fortune it generated endowed the community's institutions — above all Canadian Macedonian Place, which he and Dotsa founded in 1978, and later the dementia-care programme that bears her name.

Details

Founded
1989
People
John Bitove Sr. (Order of Canada, 1989)

Sources (3)

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bitove_Sr.
  2. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/business-titan-john-bitove-sr-made-philanthropy-a-cause/article26058673/
  3. https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/macedonians-around-the-world-mourn-the-loss-of-john-bitove-520248861.html

  • 3 Star Restaurant

    Diner · Toronto (The Beaches)

    Closed 1979

    Tom Gulin arrived from Macedonia in 1948, aged twelve, shined shoes, waited tables, and by 1955 owned the 3 Star at Kingston and Balsam, working five in the mor...

    Address: 919 Kingston Road, Toronto

    Macedonian connection: Tom Gulin came from Macedonia in 1948 at age twelve; by 1955 he owned this Kingston Road diner.

    Sources: https://beachmetro.com/2023/03/31/remembering-the-3-star-restaurant-on-kingston-road/

  • Cav-A-Bob

    Nightclub & restaurant · Toronto

    The nightclub chapter of the young Bitove portfolio — proof that the family read the whole hospitality market, from morning coffee at the Java Shoppe to evening...

    Macedonian connection: One of Bitove Sr.'s early hospitality ventures alongside the Java Shoppe.

    Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bitove_Sr.

  • Gateway Fish & Chips (Aurora) and Villa Fish & Chips (West Rouge)

    Fish & chips · Aurora; Scarborough

    After selling the 3 Star in 1970, Tom Gulin did what a Macedonian restaurateur did between restaurants: opened two more — Gateway Fish and Chips in Aurora and V...

    Macedonian connection: Tom Gulin's shops after he sold the 3 Star — the fish-and-chips trade was a Macedonian staple.

    Sources: https://beachmetro.com/2023/03/31/remembering-the-3-star-restaurant-on-kingston-road/

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