Teetering on Prairie’s Edge

The owner of Kildonan Park’s popular Prairie’s Edge restaurant isn’t sure whether the doors will be open beyond next month, when its lease with the city expires.

Doug Stephen, president of WOW! Hospitality Concepts, which has operated the restaurant — in two iterations — for a decade, said a proposed rent increase has jeopardized its future.

“At the end of the day, I said if we can’t do something which gives me a degree of confidence, we will probably just leave,” Stephen said Thursday, adding he couldn’t say much because negotiations are ongoing.

“We don’t get a lot of money there. I do it for the community, Kildonan Park and Rainbow Stage. That park is visited more for family outings than, I think, even Assiniboine Park. Prairie’s Edge is there to help make that park a better attraction.”

The restaurant is located inside the park’s original pavilion, not far from Rainbow Stage and next to the duck pond, which becomes a skating rink in the winter.

Stephen, whose passel of restaurants also includes 529 Wellington and the Peasant Cookery, didn’t want to say much, because negotiations are ongoing, but he admitted “it has been a bit of a process.

During the pandemic, when sit-down dining options were curtailed by public health restrictions, WOW! added a takeout stand attached to Prairie’s Edge called Dougie’s, offering a menu featuring burgers and other picnic-friendly items.

Stephen said he wants to sign a five-year lease, giving his company time to determine if the restaurant can continue to operate in the black.

He was taken aback recently, though, when a civic bureaucrat told him that the city was trying to compare Prairie’s Edge with other restaurants in Winnipeg to determine “what the market would bear.”

“I said, ‘You don’t have a comparable,’” he said. “We are in a park. There is no drive-by traffic. This isn’t like any other place. Doing a comparable is unfair.”

The city came back with a proposal 50 per cent higher than the current rent.

“Those numbers don’t work for me,” he said. “We don’t make enough money.”

“I said, ‘You don’t have a comparable’. We are in a park. There is no drive-by traffic. This isn’t like any other place. Doing a comparable is unfair.”–Doug Stephen, president of WOW! Hospitality Concepts

Stephen said the negotiations continue, and he has support from all three city councillors whose wards surround the park.

Coun. Devi Sharma (Old Kildonan) said she hopes a deal is worked out.

“It’s a very wonderful public amenity for not just park users, but for people from across the city,” Sharma said. “We need this restaurant here. It would be a shame to see them go.”

Coun. Jeff Browaty (North Kildonan), who is also chairman of the civic finance committee, said the city is following its normal process with commercial leases.

“Once the lease comes to its logical end, we would typically out a (request for proposal) to see what interest there was,” Browaty said. “I know the area councillors have interest to see it continue, because they are a popular community amenity, but there has to be a reasonable process.

“We want to see a food service continue there, and I think they have done a nice job with the space. I think at this point, personally, I am hopeful we have the continuation of what has been provided there, but again, there is a process here.”

Shawn Jeffrey, executive director and CEO of the Manitoba Restaurant and Foodservices Association, said he hopes the two sides come to an equitable agreement.

“You have an operator who wants to service the community, and is coming out of the pandemic in the facility, and still wants to continue,” Jeffrey said.

“It is disappointing. We have shown the city the plight of the restaurant industry, and now it tries to raise revenue and capital from this — it is very disheartening. This industry is still struggling. It’s a beautiful facility and Doug has done a great job.

“It shouldn’t be about having that building making money, but for it being the most beneficial for the community.”

Stephen said if he feels he has to shut the doors of the restaurant it won’t just be his heart he carries out the doors.

“Everything in that building is mine and I would take it,” he said. “It would be a minimum of $400,000 to $500,000 for someone else to move in.

“I’m not asking for a subsidy. All I’m asking is for them to recognize what the entity is, where it is, and making it fair.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca