Clifton Hill Updates 2026

Gizmos Wax Hands, one of Clifton Hill's new updates this year that's replaced Tim Horton's.

It seems like every year recently, the landscape of Clifton Hill changes much more dramatically and frequently. We saw several updates before the tourist season started this year, ranging from the usual annual shuffling around/removal of arcade machines to the closure of the historic Dairy Queen location that's been located in the Thriftlodge building since it opened as the "Peppermint Stick" ice cream parlour in the early 60's.

Starting with the most highly-publicized on social media, the Tim Horton's location on The Hill has closed after 20 years. The location opened in 2006 along with the Upper Canada Trading Co. next door when they replaced the original Movieland Wax Museum (which moved down the street to the former Circus World). This has (a bit surprisingly) created a bit of an uproar on social media. It being such a recognized brand locally and such an iconic Canadian fast food chain globally made it a popular fast option for Canadians, and a bit of an attraction in itself for international tourists, evidenced by the fact the place was always packed. Word on the street is that Tim Horton's parent company (which isn't even Canadian, might I add, rather being owned by the same folks who bring you Burger King) raised the franchise fee to an extraordinary price since they thought HOCO (who owns the entire side of the street) could afford it. Evidently, HOCO wasn't playing around, and to be honest, good for them. As I mentioned, the place was usually insanely busy, and if you had even the slightest Clifton Hill area knowledge, it was probably a good idea to opt for one of the dozens of faster, quieter, and honestly higher quality coffee/lunch spots nearby. The store also had a bit of a reputation for being a cleanliness disaster (this is even something brought up in the posts remembering it fondly), but I'm sure with the volume of business they were doing, the staff were trying their best to fight a losing battle on that front. I personally only dared visit here when it was slow, but it seems like people are genuinely sore about this.

The former Tim Horton's as it appeared in April 2026.

That's evident by how lambasted it's replacement has been simply for being the thing that replaced it, however I think the new attraction is fantastic, and even a little poetic. First of all, there's the positive that it's an attraction at all, not a global fast food chain or trendy merch store. This loss of identity is something that's been threatening the atmosphere of Clifton Hill for two decades, so it's always good to see something original, kitschy, and very in-line with the local spirit. The new attraction is Gizmos Wax Hands, a store where you can have casts of your hands done in coloured wax. This has been a staple of Clifton Hill for years, and several stores/wax museums used to sell them, but since the Fun Factory down The Hill was replaced by expanded Movieland space in 2023, there hasn't been anywhere to purchase them. The first place on The Hill to sell them was the original Movieland, located exactly where Gizmos now sits. In a 1992 remodel, a section in the middle of the museum's walkthrough was removed for a counter to purchase the wax hands. It was extremely popular but both held up the museum's foot traffic on busy days and wasn't visible from the street, leading to a loss of business on slow days. When Movieland moved down The Hill, the attraction now exited into the aforementioned "Fun Factory" store selling them, which was accessible from the street. The wax hands now return both to Clifton Hill and the building they were originally sold in. Another good thing to see is the return of the hand-shaped chairs that you sit while you wait. If you plan on visiting I would do it sooner rather than later, however. Small store spaces like this have always had a high turnover rate since Clifton Hill's inception, and being right on the corner near the Skywheel and facing straight down The Hill, it's probably some of Canada's most highly foot-trafficked real estate, which I imagine would mean it will be quickly replaced if it doesn't perform as expected, although I hope that's not the case.

The retro-inspired interior of the new Gizmos, complete with chairs that carried over from the old Fun Factory. Image credit: HOCO

On the topic of fast food, the next update is unfortunately much sadder, however not without hope. The Dairy Queen located in the Thriftlodge building has closed down, and although not confirmed, I wouldn't be shocked if corporate greed and raised franchise fees contributed to it's closure as well. This location, decked out in neon, chrome, a spinning sign, and a giant, glowing, plastic swirl-top cone has been a nostalgic sight on The Hill for decades, however the history of the space goes back much further. In the early 1960's, the Burland Family (who owns the majority of the opposite side of The Hill from HOCO) tore down the Clifton Cabin Court to build the Clifton Court Motel, except for it's restaurant/offices, which still exist today as the Clifton Hill Family Restaurant with the Niagara Clifton Group's offices still upstairs. The Clifton Court Motel also still stands today as Thriftlodge, but when the motel was first built, the restaurant building was expanded and the "Peppermint Stick" ice cream parlour was added. It was renamed in the early 70's to "Frostee Freeze". I've long been puzzled (when it comes to both Clifton Hill and abroad) whether or not "Frostee Freeze" was ever a franchised brand. Several mid-century ice cream establishments across North America all bore the name, or some variation on the spelling such as "Frosty" or "Frostie". While they all had similar branding, this could just be due to them all opening at the peak of American diner/drive-in culture and it's design philosophies. From what I can gather, it was never an official chain, just a popular naming choice, likely stemming from a cross between the "Tastee Freeze" and "Foster's Freeze" franchises that both originated in the U.S. Regardless, the Frostee Freeze on Clifton Hill was rebranded to a Dairy Queen in 2001.

The former Dairy Queen on Clifton Hill awash in it's nostalgic neon.

It hadn't changed at all during it's entire 20 year existence aside from updating to the current logo, and remained in all it's neon-chrome glory until this year. I think having a major brand's location on Clifton Hill isn't an inherently bad thing as long as there's something unique/different about the store that the location on your average street corner doesn't have. Unlike Tim Horton's, this was a great example of that, and another example that comes to mind is the Whopper-eating Frankenstein's Monster that sits atop the Burger King located in The House of Frankenstein. While DQ's unique design will definitely be a missing sight on Clifton Hill, it'll be very interesting to see if anything more permanent replaces it. Just a few weeks ago, a temporary looking sign was pasted over the (thankfully) untouched chrome and neon facade reading "Chug's Cafe", which is a drink stand selling soda, iced coffee and a variety of desserts. Perhaps Niagara Clifton Group saw the void in the iced coffee market left by Tim's closing across the street and quickly put something together to fill the empty space. The space isn't large enough for much else, and I think reverting the space to an original dessert stand created by Niagara Clifton Group themselves was a great use of it. They would have got bonus points if they had named it Frostee Freeze or Peppermint Stick, but the beaver mascot is a plus. I just hope they update it with more cohesive retro theming later in a similar vein as to what DQ had, as it currently looks very temporary.

The new Chug's Cafe, which I think with slightly more effort put into it's signage, could be really interesting. The menu looks delicious. Image credit: WEGO Places Tours

Back on HOCO's side of the street, the Zombie Attack shooting game ride theatre has been given a quick makeover and is now "Creepy Castle". Zombie Attack's theming always had a bit of a temporary look to it, and it's pretty clear that the intention with this theatre was likely always to simply swap out the film and the decor on the outside. This is also likely the case with the Carnival Chaos "Dark Ride" located across the walkway, which I put in quotations since "video game" is probably a more fitting description. Also developed by Triotech who developed Zombie Attack and Creepy Castle, the ride takes you past several screens that show things to shoot at, and has no physical scenery and very little exterior theming. This is almost certainly so it can also be quickly converted into a "new" attraction when the time comes for virtually no cost. Zombie Attack was looking a little dated at 10 years old as the whole Walking Dead craze it was clearly riding the tails of has long died down, so I'm not shocked they chose to replace it. It'll be interesting to see what comes of these rides in the future or if anything more permanent ever replaces them. The much older Ghostblasters located in the Great Canadian Midway always seems far busier than either of these even on a slow day, almost certainly because to be honest, it's a lot more interesting due to it's beautiful physical sets and props, creative design, and immersive storytelling.

Creepy Castle, which has replaced Zombie Attack, despite many remnants of the latter such as the caution tape pattern and sheet-metal walls. Image credit: HOCO

Speaking of the Great Canadian Midway, the old Slugfest arcade game by William's is back and next to the pinball machines, which is absolutely insane because this game hasn't been seen since the closure of the Q-Balls Billiards Pub in the old Quality Inn, the ultra-obscure arcade and pool hall located next to Golden Griddle that closed in 2009. While it's not clear if this is physically the same copy from Q-Balls or not, the Midway hasn't been the sort of arcade recently that would opt to order authentic retro games from a supplier, instead focusing on the ultra-modern "giant cellphone games" and stripping away many of their longtime classics lately. As far as I know HOCO owns all their arcade machines and doesn't rent them from a coin-op company, and I can't recall any other instance of them purchasing a game second-hand. So with all that being said I would say this is most likely the exact same cabinet seeing the light of day again almost 20 years later, and I could not be happier. Despite being produced in 1991, William's designed this game as a modern (at the time) callback to the old electro-mechanical pitch-and-bat arcade machines of the 50's and 60's. It even dispensed custom baseball cards for beating the game when it was new. I would guess this cabinet likely has that feature disabled as I don't imagine there's anyone at The Midway printing reproduction 90's baseball cards, but upon playing this game I couldn't get past the third inning, so I wouldn't know. The last time I encountered one of these cabinets was over 10 years ago as a teenager in the arcade at Alliston's famous Nottawasaga Inn when it was removed as the arcade downsized, which is what I'm blaming my rustyness on.

I've always loved William's cabinet artwork from this era. It has this tongue-in-cheek touch to it that parodies 20th century Americana. The artwork here is reminiscent of other William's classics like "Hit the Ice" or "Smash T.V.".

It seems simple at first, the ball comes down the playfield then you swing the bat and hope the ball goes where you want, but it's actually much deeper than that. You switch between pitching and batting, and can select what pitch you're throwing by hitting the fast ball, curve ball, change up, or screw ball buttons. Different pitches are more likely to go to different places on the playfield when hit, so when pitching against the computer or an opponent, you can select a pitch that's almost impossible to hit towards the target your opponent needs. The timing of swinging at different pitches is important too, as for example a curve ball hit early might go to one very specific target on the playfield whereas one hit late might go to another, or hit nothing at all, so knowing what you need to throw/hit and when is a huge part of this game's meta. There's also buttons to pinch hit and steal bases when batting. I would love to see more older games like this return to The Midway. HOCO has always kept things around in storage long after their removal (see this article on the return of the original Dinosaur Park Brontosauruses to Dinosaur Adventure Golf this spring) and I'd be super interested to know what else they still have. I think customers would genuinely appreciate the variety, and although I understand how some things like the old token launcher games aren't feasible since the swipe card apocalypse or profitable in the modern "6-12 credits a play" arcade economy, I'd say that's only true for a small percentage of older games. I guess what I'm saying is I'd rather pay 8 credits to play Tekken or pinball using a swipe card than not have the option to play them at all, and with nostalgia now being an undeniable part of the arcade experience even to the average consumer, I don't think I'm alone in that.

I'm happy to report that the changes we've seen so far this year have been somewhat positive across the board, as I'm even interested in seeing if Chug's gets more fleshed out and becomes a permanent fixture. This continues the trend of the last few years, which has seen similar updates, and more importantly, love poured into classics again, the Dinosaur Adventure Golf Brontosauruses and the Castle Dracula restoration being prime examples. We can expect some big changes to Clifton Hill in the next few years (more on that later) so it's refreshing to see that the ball is currently rolling in the right trajectory.