A popular Toronto hostel is closing its doors after nearly 20 years of providing budget travellers a place to rest their heads.

Global Village Backpackers announced on Facebook that “due to unforeseen circumstances” the hostel will close Monday.

“Thank you to everyone who has made this place the icon it is today — We love you all, and as individuals we wish it wasn’t ending so soon!” read a message on the hostel’s Facebook group.

Repeated requests to management for comment were not returned Monday.

The hostel’s former owner died in December. It is not clear who took over the business after his death.

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The sudden closure came as a shock to people staying at the bright blue building at the corner of King and Spadina.

Karzan Taher had booked into Global Village Backpackers for a month while he works in Toronto, but on Friday, he was told he needed to find a new place to stay by Monday morning.

“I was not expecting to move out,” he said.

Taher found another hostel to stay at until he goes back to Kurdistan in early February. He’s hoping his new digs are an improvement over Global Village Backpackers, where the heat didn’t work, he said.

“It was no good,” he said. “I’ve never been to a hostel like that.”

But Nikola Nodilo enjoyed his stay at the hostel.

“It was good here,” he said. “I’m a traveller so I don’t mind living in a hostel.”

Nodilo had been living at Global Village Backpackers for about a month and a half, and worked at the font desk.

“I lost my job. I lost my place to live. So God knows what happens next,” said Nodilo, who’s from Croatia and is living in Canada on a working holiday visa.

He and other staff have found another hostel where they can stay, but he’s not sure if he’ll be able to find a job in Toronto.

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“Maybe I’ll go to Alberta,” he said.

There was no foreshadowing for the hostel’s sudden closure, Nodilo said.

“Everything was perfectly fine and then we had a staff meeting (on Saturday) saying the business was dying,” he said.

Half a dozen people sat in the hostel’s lobby amidst an avalanche of giant backpacks and plastic garbage bags filled with clothes and personal items Monday afternoon, listening to morose music such as “Closing Time” by Semisonic and “Bad Day,” by R.E.M. Upstairs, bunks in the brightly coloured dorm rooms were stripped bare, but pop cans and empty cigarette packages remained.

Helena Murphy remembers happier times at the hostel, where she lived and worked for nearly two years after coming to Toronto in 2011.

“The staff and some of the longer term guests did form a family almost, which was hard in a way as people were constantly coming and going,” Murphy said in an email from her current home in Dublin. “Lots of goodbyes and tears over the two years!”

The building on the northwest corner of King and Spadina has a long history of being a temporary home to weary travellers, starting as Richardson House in 1873. Since then, it has been known as Hotel Falconer, the Zeigler Hotel, Hotel Spadina and the Spadina Hotel. Global Village Backpackers has occupied the space since 1997.

The hostel’s bar, The Departure Lounge, has been a watering hole for backpackers and Torontonians alike over the years, hosting live music and boasting a large patio in the summer. Notices posted around the hostel Monday said the bar is now closed.

“We would like to thank everyone for all of the amazing times we have had here,” the notices said.

Global Village Backpacker’s closing won’t affect Moose Travel, a travel agency that has operated out of the hostel for about 12 years, said Megan Lalancette, the company’s owner.

The travel agency will move to a new office, and operations will continue as usual, Lalancette said.

But there wasn’t any early indication that the business would need to find a new home.

“It was a little bit of a shock,” she said.

What comes next for the building, listed as a heritage property by the city of Toronto in 1985, remains unclear. The property is owned by a numbered company, not by Global Village Backpackers.

Global Village Backpackers’ Facebook page lists a second location at 280 Augusta Avenue in Kensington Market. That location was run – but not owned – by Global Village, and split from the company on Saturday, said Michael Clark, an employee who’s currently helping manage the Kensington Market hostel.