FAMILY AT THE HEART OF UNIONVILLE ARMS

Unionville Main Street has blossomed into one of the the premier tourist destinations in York Region and Tom and Paul Vasilovsky have been at the heart of it for more than 30 years.

The brothers own the Unionville Arms Pub and Grill that has been serving local since 1989. "Pubs were just starting to come into vogue at the time in Toronto," Paul said. "We opened in September 0f 1989 and went gangbusters right off the bat, it was really, really busy."

"People would come in and they were just married. Then the woman is pregnant. They have little kids and are coming in here. Next thing you know that kid is in university," he said. "Some of the babies

we saw are now 30 years old and coming back here."

The Vasilovskys have been able to keep that family atmosphere at the restaurant

with staff that are like family. "We still have a couple of the original staff members. Most of the guys in the kitchen have been

here close to 30 years. Gil has been here since we opened," Paul said.

When COVID-19 struck Paul and Tom bucked the

trend of most restaurant and kept their staff on doing takeout. "It was enough to pay staff and pay food costs. We weren't making any money," Paul said, "We kept them employed so we didn't lose them to other businesses."

The Arms wasn't the only restaurant the brothers ran in Unionville over the years. They had the Unionville House Restaurant, the Blacksmith Bistro and the

Chophouse. At the height of their busy years they had four restaurants running but in the past decade they have sold off the others and now just have the Arms. "This place is special," Paul said.

While the atmosphere of the pub is its calling card, there is no way it would have survived all these years without top notch food. "A lot of people call it pub fare but we don't do a lot of frozen food. We make things homemade," Paul said.

Even after close to 40 years working side-by-side the brothers still enjoy each other's company. "I don't know what I would do if I wasn't here with him," Tom said.

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