Bar Vendetta is set to inject some fresh wine and pasta vibes into the Trinity Bellwoods neighbourhood when it opens this summer, but pump the brakes if you’re already envisioning a lovely Saturday night outing.

Owner Jen Agg, a well-known Toronto restaurateur who runs a bunch of popular spots across the city, is planning an unusual service schedule for this one: it will be closed Fridays and Saturdays.

In an Instagram post, Agg says the restaurant — which is opening in the location previously occupied by The Black Hoof, her cosy landmark space that popularized “nose-to-tail” dining in the city — will be open Sunday to Thursday evenings only, at least at first. The logic, she says in the post, is to bill the restaurant as a neighbourhood place, a “secret” niche that first and foremost promotes interests of the community.

She goes on to say as much as there can be “lovely” customers on Saturdays, it’s also usually the time for “people that are looking for the hot new thing instead of ones who are really invested” in a restaurant’s success — “also douchebags,” she writes.

It’s rare that a bar or restaurant business chooses to be closed on weekends but industry experts say — counterintuitive as it may seem — turning away business on peak nights to cater to a local crowd might better a restaurant’s chances of success in a notoriously tough industry.

Downtown bars and restaurants often like to brand themselves as neighbourhood venues as opposed to “destination” venues, said Myer Siemiatycki, urban and labour researcher and professor of public administration and politics at Ryerson University.

“They often are situated close to housing and rely on nearby residents for clientele and goodwill,” he said. “So they are more attentive to keeping loyal local customers and avoiding creating neighbourhood problems like traffic and noise.”

The dynamic is usually the opposite for businesses in the suburbs, where most restaurants and bars are located away from housing and are more dependent on clients who have to travel by car, he said.

Fridays and Saturdays are typically the nights when people from Toronto’s inner and outer suburbs flock to downtown looking for nightlife experience at different bars, restaurants and nightclubs.

But if some are feeling excluded, urban planner Cheryll Case said the best fix is to make the community more accessible rather than the restaurant, by making sure there are affordable housing options.

“I think it’s great that restaurants are free to try new things. Community connections are important, and unique experiences can come from this model of local-only or private bookings on the weekend,” she said.

“If the local supply of housing includes affordable options, the question of exclusion is less pronounced.”

As rare as it might be, it’s not the first time a Toronto bar or restaurant has taken the unusual route of opening to the general public only during weekdays.

Oliver & Bonacini Hospitality, a group that owns a chain of restaurants across the country, have operated Canoe in downtown Toronto for more than two decades under a similar model, keeping Saturdays and Sundays reserved for private events.

“The expectation was that foot traffic would be very low for a tower in the Financial District,” spokesperson Rebecca Spence said of Canoe, a swanky spot on the 54th floor of the TD tower near Bay and Wellington Sts.

“We found that business model has worked well for us over the past 20-plus years.”

She said they’ve been flexible, sometimes opening up for lunch and dinner during weekends when there are no pre-booked events.

Danielle Ranieri, a marketing co-ordinator with St. Louis Bar & Grill, which has several locations in Toronto’s core and the suburbs, said the franchise occasionally hires additional staff and servers when they anticipate a larger than usual crowd with customers from out of town, such as when there are big sports events or concerts.

“We have guests who come from all over to enjoy the St. Louis experience. We don’t discriminate,” she said.

James Rilett, vice-president of Restaurants Canada, said there are different reasons a business owner decides to open some days and not others. Especially when those bars or restaurants are new to the market, the hours of operation may be different based on the number of employees available, the expected clientele or the makeup of the business location.

He said there are many restaurants, bars and diners that are only open at breakfast and lunch times, while others stagger the hours of operation or skip the daytime and only open at night, even in areas as busy as downtown or West Queen West.

Even then, he said the idea of having a bar or restaurant that is open weekdays only seems “a little counterintuitive” to him.

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“For the most part, restaurateurs try and attract as many customers as they can,” he said.

Rilett noted the profit margins in the restaurant industry are under four per cent, which is why such business owners try to stay open as long as possible, especially during weekends when most people are off work and can eat out.

“That being said, if someone thinks that their business model is best served by this, power to them. It’s their decision on how to run their business and hopefully it works for them,” he said.