Anchor Bar opens new location in Uptown Waterloo

On August 23, 2018 Anchor Bar held its official grand opening as the newest restaurant edition to uptown Waterloo.

Anchor Bar in Waterloo — ‘home of the original buffalo wing’ — is the fifth location of Anchor Bar’s franchise in Canada.

Anchor Bar began its history in 1965 in Buffalo, NY. Since then it has spread across the globe and, specifically, came into Canada just over three years ago.

Since Anchor Bar in Waterloo opened its doors, David Copperthwaite, the owner of Anchor Bar Canada, said the response from the KW community has been terrific.

“It’s been the best response that I’ve had in the five we’ve opened in Ontario anywhere so far,” he said.

“I can’t believe the support and the understanding … I guess it’s because it’s closer to Buffalo; the closer you get to buffalo, there seems to be an understanding of Anchor Bar more.”

Copperthwaite said in a short amount of time the restaurant has already been receiving up to 50 reservation requests each day.

Although Anchor Bar is not the only restaurant and bar in its area, they offer a series of specials for students to take advantage of. “We’ve taken to the students in mind too, we like to support them because we know they’re all on budgets.”

“We just thought Waterloo would be a great place with all the students [since we have] some great specials,” Copperthwaite said.

“The uptown to me is the most improved area that I can see that’s really got a bit of a hub that people want to come to and walk around have food and drink and spend an evening in.”

In 2017, Anchor Bar Canada’s first three locations sold an average of 2000 pounds of wings each day.

With the new addition of Anchor Bar’s Mississauga location, which opened up this past June 7, and now the Waterloo location, Copperthwaite hopes the restaurant’s combined total will increase.

“Now that the Mississagua store is open, between that and Waterloo, we hope to get up to 3000 pounds a day,” he said.

Although Anchor Bar is not the only restaurant and bar in its area, they offer a series of specials for students to take advantage of.

“We’ve taken to the students in mind too, we like to support them because we know they’re all on budgets,” Copperthwaite said.

Specials include half price pizza on Monday’s, $5.99 tall cans of beer on Tuesday’s and $4.99 pints of beer on Thursdays, amongst others.