Some Downtown Food for Thought

Visit any downtown in North America and you will quickly realize that one-of-a-kind restaurants and revitalization go hand in hand. People know that good food and great restaurants are catalysts to downtown renewal and are essential ingredients for a hip urban city centre.

With dozens of restaurants having recently opened up downtown, offering bagels to sushi to Mexican and Italian cuisine, now is the time for members of city hall and entrepreneurs to take note of this mouth-watering recipe for continued growth and success in the heart of our city.

Some entrepreneurs are recycling old restaurant space, while others are taking advantage of new space in buildings that consist of storefronts at the sidewalk level. The new Manitoba Hydro Building now houses 3 unique restaurants on its main floor: Green Leaf Healthy Café, Marcello's Market & Deli and Rudy's Eat & Drink. The University of Winnipeg Buhler Centre, an innovative hub for their business faculty and the arts (i.e. the Plug In Gallery), also houses Stella's Café & Bakery.

Each of these restaurants are designed with a modern aesthetic, with cool décor and large windows that are all lit and are welcoming. In addition to these essential design features, restaurants could very well benefit by adding patios, which would result in instant marketing, increased sales and a vibrant city centre.

An important client base for these restaurants are the thousands of residents, students and office workers who come downtown, and they all add to the line-ups on weekend mornings at places like Stella's. These restaurants are transforming our downtown and are making it a place to visit and hang out 7 days a week, at all times of the day.

Imagine not having these restaurants in spaces like the Buhler Centre and the Manitoba Hydro building. Well, you'd be surprised to know that current zoning policies make it quite easy for owners and developers to simply build blank walls and office space.

So given that our business community and the vast majority of Winnipeggers want a lively downtown and we know how to achieve it, why don't we encourage the development of new buildings that have commercial spaces for retail and restaurants? Why not implement a recruitment program that helps owners attract these types of tenants?

You see, when zoning aligns with our vision for a strong and more animated pedestrian-oriented downtown, our revitalization efforts are more successful and achievable.

For example, in and around the MTS Centre, where the proposed sports, hospitality, and entertainment district will be located, entrepreneurs are taking advantage of the significant office demographic and growing evening crowd and creating new business.

If there wasn't a market for this type of district, then the city wouldn't be committing to its plan. So, if we're hoping for this district to succeed, then we're going to need proper zoning for this area so that there is increased pedestrian activity and storefronts with shops and restaurants. Let's not leave this to chance.

When we see more retail, coffee shops, restaurants and pubs in the heart of our city, all clustered within a walkable and mixed-use dense district, we'll see our downtown truly come alive. And with the expansion of the Winnipeg Convention Centre, the imminent arrival of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and over 2000 new residential housing units being proposed, we'll see more people downtown and an increased demand for retail, hospitality and entertainment. Let's take this demand and mold it so we can achieve our vision.

Our downtown today is becoming a unique junction within the city and restaurants are indeed critical in this revitalization and give people a reason to come downtown. We are at a cross road; if we want a renewed downtown bustling with people and activity, then we're going to need to change our approach and follow best practice from the downtowns that have shown tremendous success.

Click here to see a complete listing of the restaurants downtown: