Bella! Did Ya Eat?, the weekly brunch buffet that Free Times Cafe owner Judy Perly launched at the restaurant two decades ago, hasn’t only been a boon to the business, but something that’s kept her feeling personally anchored.

“I call it my Prozac,” the 65-year-old Perly said with a chuckle, her mass of red hair coiled atop her head.

“There were times when the restaurant generally wasn’t doing that well, and I said, ‘This isn’t good, but the brunch is good.’ For 10 years, I came every Saturday night and cut up all the desserts for the next day. I was single at the time, and the brunch got me through some difficult times… It’s helped me develop a better social persona, to get out there more and feel proud of myself.”

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Bella! Did Ya Eat? as well as the 35th anniversary of the Free Times Cafe, the College Street restaurant that Perly, a former high school art teacher and private caterer, purchased in 1980 in an attempt to support her then-visual art career.

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Featuring what Perly calls “home-cooked food from around the world” – dishes like quiche, pasta and falafel – Free Times also became known as a hub for folk and acoustic musicians, who, by 1983, were performing in the restaurant’s back room seven nights a week.

Following a fire in 1990 that saw Free Times temporarily close down, the restaurant was struggling, and Perly, understanding the popularity of brunch and feeling a personal tug to get back in touch with her Jewish roots, conceived of Bella! Did Ya Eat?, an all-you-can-eat buffet featuring dozens of authentic, mostly Ashkenazi Jewish dishes like fried eggs and onion, herring, gefilte fish, smoked salmon, bagels, potato latkes, blintzes and challah – much of it made in house.

“I knew what my Jewish customers wanted – the food on the table before they got there, reservations so they could change them… I knew they were picky eaters so I needed a foolproof concept,” Perly explained, noting that the brunch was successful from Day 1.

Bella! Did Ya Eat?, which, over the years, has expanded to include about 50 different dishes for a fixed price of $20, accompanied by a set of live klezmer music, offers two seatings every Sunday.

“We’re the only place in the world to have weekly concerts of klezmer and Jewish music… We’ll have Yiddish music or music by a Jewish composer, and sometimes a little Hebrew,” Perly said, listing bands like Beyond the Pale, Sultans of String and The Shpielers as some of the regular performers.

A dozen or so bands have formed as a result of the weekly stage provided by the brunch, Perly said, and the brunch has been integral to the evolution of klezmer and Yiddish music in Toronto, which has seen something of a revival of late.

Brunch with a “lot of soul”

The restaurant’s overall clientele is roughly 80 per cent Jewish, but Perly said the brunch draws more of a 50/50 ratio of Jews to non-Jews, the former often expressing the sense of nostalgia the experience evokes for the food of their childhood, and the latter appreciating the exposure to traditional Jewish fare.

While she regrets that more Jewish clients don’t attend the brunch – something she attributes to the difficulty for many of driving from their north Toronto homes through downtown traffic – Perly said that the restaurant has a huge demand at Chanukah for their latkes, which can be ordered to go, and that Free Times is often rented out for private events like bar mitzvah parties.

“The brunch is layered with a lot of soul… Plus, we’re situated right in the heart of the old Jewish neighbourhood, so it brings older Jewish people who themselves grew up here,” Perly said.

Having grown up on Eglinton Avenue above her Canadian-born parents’ business, Perly’s Maps, Perly said Bella! Did Ya Eat? has made her feel more connected to her late mother, Bella, a number of whose belongings she has incorporated into the homey, old world décor of the restaurant’s added-on bistro dining section, and to her eastern European grandmother, whose inquiring after whether her daughter had yet eaten supper inspired the buffet’s name.

“I put all these from my mother’s house into the bistro… as well as incorporating my mother and grandmother’s dishes into the brunch because I didn’t have my own children and wasn’t doing Friday night dinners for them. I wanted to find a way to have more soul around my own life in terms of being Jewish.”

Free Times Cafe will celebrate its 35th anniversary on Dec. 15 with musical performances, including a Yiddish cabaret, and a deluxe buffet featuring chicken, brisket, salmon and vegetarian dishes.