Caribou Motel & Diner- Guthrie

The Caribou Motel and Diner was located along highway 11 in Guthrie just north of Barrie. It began operating in the early 1950(a)s and was a welcome sight for the northern cottagers on their way home.

The two-storey motel had an adjoining diner where hungry guests could eat and a swimming pool & hot tub housed in a hangar building. The hangar was later used for storage after the motel closed.

The motel rooms were converted into apartments during the 1980(a)s. At that time the diner changed owners and began operating under the new name of "Quigley(a)s Diner Pub & Pizza"

When the pub closed in 2002, the apartment owners were evicted and the property was scheduled to be demolished to make way for another Wendy(a)s highway restaurant.

Additional information from Jax:
I was enjoying the site and saw you had a little info on the old Caribou Motel & Restaurant in Oro Medonte. I grew up on the 7th line of Oro and I can fill in a little bit of the history for you. The Caribou was purchased by the Nikolouzos family in the 70''s. The ran it as a restaurant and motel and gas bar right into the early 90''s when business dropped off Mr Nikolouzos committed arson to it and torched most of it (this is not speculation he was convicted in court of it). THe motel was not extensively damaged in the fire but the interior of the restaurant was ruined. The insurance company then sold it in the mid 90''s to another fellow who also owned the former Fuda''s property across the road who ran the motel like a long term lodging flat and brought in the guys who ran the gas station and rented to Quigleys. He also built a small out building to the side that was rented to another local who operated a salon there. When the rumor came around that Hwy 11 was going to be widened he raised the rent to a very high rate and the current tenants couldn't carry it, he hoped to use this as means to justify the loss of income when the province was supposed to come a knocking to purchase up the land to widen Hwy 11. Of course the widening of 11 didn''t occur. He had no tenants to pay the mortgage so He housed boats there until the property was almost destroyed (when you took your photos) and then yes it was demo''d to make way for a new Esso and a Tim Hortons. This may be of NO interest to you but I thought I would share it just in case it was.