Honest Ed’s--Discount Store Becomes a Toronto Landmark

TORONTO —  The block-long, barn-like store on the southwest corner of Bloor and Bathurst streets is a landmark outlined with glowing white light bulbs and crowned with a huge illuminated sign.

Slogans painted in large letters on the white walls of the building proclaim great buys and fun shopping: “How cheap can a guy get? Come in and find out,” and “No sour-faced clerks. Just a little on the homely side,” among others.

This is Honest Ed’s, Toronto’s premiere discount store, with about 100,000 square feet of selling space on four floors, and 14 departments that offer bargains in everything from lawn chairs to lace panties, pandas to pots and pans, scuba tanks to sandblasters. There are bathing trunks and leather jackets, sweaters and skirts, and a full panoply of kitschy Canadiana, souvenirs including plastic Eskimo dolls and “I love Pierre Trudeau” coffee mugs. All at for-a-song prices.

Honest Ed’s is the invention of Ed Mirvish, one of Canada’s best-known rags-to-riches entrepreneurs. In 1948, Mirvish opened Honest Ed’s in a narrow storefront. The store was open only one afternoon a week, but was so successful that the hours were soon expanded to three, then five, then six days a week. Honest Ed gradually displaced stores in adjacent storefronts, moved into upper floors, and eventually built a 65,000-square-foot addition to the original storefronts.

Opening Hour Specials

The store still opens after noon but by 11:30 a.m. there are usually lines of people waiting for the opening hour specials. These are often announced in newspaper ads, and range from five pounds of white flour for 79 cents to two dozen baby diapers for $2.21. Ed Mirvish calls these special sale items “door-crashers.” They are sold below cost to bring people into the store to buy more.

The tactic works. When the doors open people swarm through the aisles, snapping up not only the “door-crashers,” but coffee makers, cheese graters, tins of biscuits, rubber boots, touch-tone phones, fishing lures, hair curlers and other items. Upbeat background music spurs them on. And there are more slogans: “Honest Ed’s, where only the floors are crooked,” and “Honest Ed’s going bald, but his prices are hair-raising.” Honest Ed pays customers $10 for new, cute and corny slogans.

When business is slow, Honest Ed runs special day-long or marathon sales. There was the 1958 Dream Sale, in which customers won dates with Robert Goulet and actress Margot MacKinnon, by being the one standing on a secret “dream spot” in the store at the right time.

Another customer was given the chance to buy an island in Georgian Bay for $2.19. A swimming pool was sold to another customer for 88 cents, a weekend in New York for $2.19 and a cruise for two for $1.99. Then there was the 72-hour Honest Ed marathon that included the sale of a 21-inch TV for $1.98, a washing machine for $1.89 and a mink stole for $1.98.

A Carnival Atmosphere

All the slogans and special events give Honest Ed’s a carnival-like atmosphere. It’s a fun-house of gadgets and gewgaws, things useful and frivolous. The fun ambiance augments the store’s popularity, but the bargains are the real draw. Much of the merchandise is remaindered, end of line, job lot or from fire sales. The display isn’t handsome. More often than not, the goods are piled high on metal tables, or overflowing from orange crates. There are no salespersons offering to assist you.

Honest Ed’s accepts no credit cards, no checks, and there are no refunds or exchanges. Still, the prices can’t be beat, and the crowds keep coming.

It’s fun, even if all you buy is a $1.49 hula doll bearing an “I Love Toronto” banner or an 88-cent ballpoint in which an ice hockey player glides down the shaft as you tilt the pen. Honest Ed’s is like a TV game show where everyone in the audience is a player.