Matty Matheson opening a restaurant in Hamilton Arena
Our city featured prominently in the Departure music and art festival in Toronto, with the Canadian celebrity chef announced as a food partner in the transformed downtown arena, and panel discussing Hamilton as key to next global music hub.
Celebrity chef Matty Matheson is a big fan of Hamilton and will be opening a new restaurant in conjunction with the redeveloped arena downtown.
Called Iron Cow Public House, it will be a street-level, 9,500-square-foot full-service restaurant and bar with a capacity for up to 185 guests. The restaurant will be open for lunch and dinner whether or not the arena has an event, and will include a speakeasy-style pub.
The announcement was made at Departure, a music and art festival and conference (formally Canadian Music Week) happening this week at a Toronto hotel. The conference also included a panel discussion called Next Stop: Hamilton – Building a Global Music Hub that showcased the $300-million investment by Oak View Group in Hamilton’s 18,000-seat arena.
Tim Leiweke, chair and CEO of Hamilton Arena redeveloper and operator Oak View Group, said he and Matheson immediately bonded over their shared love of music and Hamilton. From there, they forged a shared vision of the future arena and the role food can play in making it a destination.
“I think we can rebuild an entire city,” Leiweke said during an on-stage discussion with Matheson.
“We’ve built arenas but we haven’t yet reinvigorated a city. Hamilton is dying to be rediscovered and rebuilt.”
Matheson has been given creative licence to name the restaurant, design it and come up with the food it will offer, Leiweke told HAMILTON CITY Magazine.
“One of the things I want to do is change the way we think about food in arenas and food at concerts and at sports events. My gut tells me, Matty is going to push us, and we're going to think outside the box and do incredible things. And our job is to follow him.”
Leiweke predicts a new influx of restaurants will come out of Matheson’s arrival in the city and the investment in the arena.
Born in St. John and raised in Fort Erie, Matheson told a large conference crowd that he has spent a lot of time in Hamilton.
That includes partying on Upper James and in Hess Village with his best friend who was attending Mohawk College, and just hanging out in the big city.
“The arena is just so iconic and Hamilton itself is incredible. I like going there. It feels good and I want to feed people there. It’s a great city.”
Matheson, who has opened more than a dozen restaurants, has a recurring role and an executive producer post in the FX series The Bear, has three New York Times best-selling cookbooks and a line of cookware to his name and even performs in a hard-core rock band called PigPen with buddies from high school, including Alexisonfire’s Wade MacNeil.
Matheson and his restaurant group, Our House H.C., will also design and curate the menu for three arena concession stands that will feature items from his establishments, Matty’s Patty’s and Rizzo’s House of Parm. Along with OVG Hospitality, other Matheson concepts will be introduced within the arena for premium suites and food and beverage.
He said Iron Cow will pair good bar food with British fare.
Matheson is outspoken, unguarded and self-effacing. Dressed in a trucker hat and jeans, he told the rapt Toronto crowd that he has learned from past failures and now is focused on doing what makes him happy.
Matheson, who portrays the handyman Neil Fak on the FX series, The Bear, owns and operates Prime Seafood Palace, Bar Clams, CÀ Phê Rang and Maker Pizza in Toronto, Matty’s Patty’s in Toronto, and Costa Mesa, Calif., and Rizzo’s House of Parm in Fort Erie.
Panel: ‘Hamilton is the capital of the Golden Horseshoe’
At one time, Hamilton’s proximity to Toronto was a disadvantage in terms of attracting big musical acts, but that has entirely flipped, said a four-person panel talking about Hamilton as the next global music hub. In the future, Hamilton can act as an outlet for shows by leading acts who will come to do a couple of shows in Toronto and then another in Hamilton.
Panel moderator Joey Scoleri, senior vice president of industry relations for event producer Live Nation, says the entire Canadian music industry will benefit by the newly renovated arena in Hamilton, which is attracting a lot of attention from artists, agents, managers and bookers.
Scotiabank Arena, the only other 18,000-plus seat music venue in the GTHA, is busy with hockey, concerts and family events, said Scoleri.
“And for those from London, Niagara, Buffalo, Burlington, Oakville and Mississauga, it’s easier to get to Hamilton than downtown Toronto.”
In a fast-growing broader regional market, at one point referred to as extending from London to Kingston, Hamilton can be what Anaheim is to Los Angeles or what Brooklyn is to Manhattan.
Where both the L.A. and New York City markets have five arenas, the GTHA has just one. That’s not enough to satisfy concert demand, says Riley O’Connor, chair of Live Nation Canada.
He’s been booking shows in Hamilton since the 1980s and says local music fans are different from those in Toronto.
“The Hamilton audience doesn’t sit on their hands. They are vocal and enthusiastic and that drives the shows. Artists always wanted to come back.”
He pointed out that Hamilton has attracted huge acts before, including Elton John, Paul McCartney, Guns N Roses, and Bruce Springsteen. The city also hosted a New Year’s Eve show by the Tragically Hip for a number of years.
But the new venue will provide an experience for artists that they won’t forget, said O’Connor. Budweiser Stage is the No. 1 amphitheatre destination for touring artists because of the experience it offers and that level of success can be achieved in Hamilton, too.
“This will be inspirational for the people of Hamilton,” said O’Connor. “There will be pride of place when people walk in the doors and wonder why the city didn’t have this 20 years ago.”
The new arena will drive not only a great experience for fans and artists, it will be a catalyst to Hamilton’s place as a sought-after touring market and to development of other downtown investment, says Nick DeLuco, Hamilton Arena’s general manager.
The amenities for artists and their crews, the acoustics, the loading facilities and the floor-level premium suites can’t be found elsewhere in Canada, he says. Fans will find a much better experience moving around the building and accessing concessions and other amenities than was the case over the first 40 years of the building’s existence.
“When you sink $300 million into a building and you aren’t building from the ground up, it’s an opportunity to transform the entire space.”
Zach Feldman, senior vice president of partnerships and revenue at Oak View Group, says the Hamilton venue is a “sleeping giant” that will offer an “amazing experience” to fans and to brands looking to connect with them.
But it’s also a good investment for Oak View Group. Hamilton has all the amenities of a major city, including city infrastructure, an international airport, cultural institutions and a true downtown, says Feldman, making it the most obvious place for strong population growth.
“Hamilton is the capital of the Golden Horseshoe.”
OVG was founded in 2015 by Leiweke, former president of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, and Irving Azoff, longtime music manager and former CEO of Ticketmaster. It has grown into a global leader in venue development, management and hospitality services.
(It also took over as co-owner of Canadian Music Week, along with Toronto's Loft Entertainment, last June and rebranded it as Departure.)
A great example of the regional draw of the yet-to-be-named Hamilton Arena is the first show to be announced – Andrea Bocelli’s Dec. 9 appearance. Fifty per cent of ticket sales for the sold-out concert were sold to Torontonians.
The arena will also host the JUNOS in March 2026.
Both DeLuco and Leiweke hinted at an another imminent show announcement.
When asked directly whether the arena would be a sporting venue, Feldman said Hamilton is a big and passionate sports town and that the ice plant and scoreboard will be upgraded. He said more news on that front will come.
