Memorable Manitobans: John Porteous Rae (1914-1996)

Restauranteur.

Born at Innisfail, Alberta in 1914, he moved to Winnipeg with his family at a young age. While working at the first Salisbury House restaurant on Fort Street, he met Gerald Alfred John “Jerry” Hemsworth and, in 1936, they moved to Fort William (Ontario) with two others partners, Gordon Hill and Casey Byron, and operated a restaurant together.

Rae and Hemsworth returned to Winnipeg and in September 1939, with financial help from Arthur Chipman, opened a restaurant at the corner of Portage Avenue and Vaughan Street. In 1947, it was relocated to Kennedy Street and renamed Rae and Jerry’s Steak House, then in 1950 to a site on Portage at Langside. In 1957, it settled on a site immediately east of Polo Park that became a Winnipeg institution. In 1975, the two partners sold the business to Steve Hrousalas and he began working for the Ford Leasing Division.

He wrote volumes on the preparation and serving of food and wine, and also the column “All About Wine” in the Winnipeg Tribune during the mid-1970s. He was a member of the St. Charles Country Club.

He died at Winnipeg on 17 October 1996.

Sources:

Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 19 October 1996, page 52.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 10 December 2021

Memorable Manitobans

Memorable Manitobans

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