La Scala Ristorante & Cafe

This historic building was located right in the heart of downtown St. Catharines up until early 2026 when it was fully demolished. The building was originally built as a house sometime between 1852 and 1854 but there was also an one-storey addition on the side that was built in 1870. The building was most likely built for Dr. William Ferris and a few years later it was sold to Henry Brownlee, who was a Irish immigrant that ran a grocery store and bakery nearby. He also built the Brownlee Block at the corner of St. Paul and Queen St but it was demolished in 1968. In the early 1900s a portion of the house was rented to Dr. Samuel McCoy, who operated a medical practice from the location. After 1931, the building was no longer a private residence and was converted into an commercial building with a apartment upstairs. Since then it has housed a lot of different businesses over the years, such as insurance brokers, real estate agencies, an architectural firm, a camera shop, and a wheel tuning shop. In March 2014, An Italian restaurant called “La Scala Ristorante & Cafe” moved their business here. They restored the building by removing grey paint from the brick, turned the large display window in the front into a patio doorway but before it was converted into the cafe the property and the St. Catharines Standard building right beside it were sold to a developer named Italo Ferrari in 2012. The restaurant stayed open until it closed on November 3, 2018 to “allow for the new development” which never ended up happening. The property remained vacant and the building was even added on the Heritage Registry on February 28, 2022! It was also in the Queen Street Heritage District which was designated in 1991. The building suffered a fire around 7:00 p.m. on Friday, December, 26, 2025. The fire started in the attic and was hard to put out so they had to demolish the upstairs of the building to fully put the fire out. They had the fire fully under control around 1:00 a.m and after the fire the building was deemed a total loss and was fully demolished weeks after. Unfortunately this is another historic building in the downtown area that’s gone due to a “suspicious fire”.