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Greta Bar YEG has recently joined a number of other downtown Edmonton restaurants that have announced they are closing their doors this year.
“No single decision brought us here,” Chris DeCock, president of the Greta chain of arcade bars, said in a public statement issued Monday.
“It wasn’t one tax increase. It wasn’t patio fees. It wasn’t paid parking. It wasn’t hybrid work. It wasn’t safety. It wasn’t one construction project. It was death by a thousand cuts.”
Other restaurants in the heart of Edmonton that have closed this year alone include kb&co (the chain still has other locations open), Khazana, Bündok, Kommune and PlayWright.
News of the closures has reverberated through Edmonton’s business community and some business owners have called on city council to offer more support to restaurants that have to navigate challenges on multiple fronts such as accumulating debt, increasing rent, concerns around social disorder and ongoing construction.
“Restaurants …. our profit margin is very thin,” Maya Richmond, owner of the Padmanadi restaurant chain that has its flagship location in central Edmonton, said in an interview with CBC News.
The family-run plant-based chain has two locations in Edmonton and a third location in Calgary.
“Anything that disrupts the ecosystem … you’re either breaking even or you’re just not gonna make it,” Richmond said.
When asked about concerns being raised by Edmonton business owners, Mayor Andrew Knack told CBC News that work has been ongoing on multiple fronts to address concerns such as expediting phased construction on the Valley Line West LRT project.
“The intersection at 104th Street and 102nd Avenue, they did some targeted work around that,” he said. “That opened two weeks ahead of schedule, even with all of the rain, because we know the impact that construction can have.
“We hear a lot about safety and security. As of July 2, we’ve added 30 new transit peace officers that are working on our transit system. That includes a lot of the downtown LRT stations.”
Ward O-day’min Coun. Anne Stevenson represents downtown constituents and said she is disappointed to hear of the closures in the core. She said she believes there are compounding reasons that have contributed to the shuttering of eateries.
“A lot of restaurants, in particular, took out loans during the COVID era to help stay afloat during those really challenging times,” she told CBC News, as she spoke broadly about restaurants in general.
“Those debts are now coming due.”
Stevenson also spoke about the impact that general concerns around affordability have had.
“We know that the cost of groceries has increased quite considerably,” she said. “We know that people are drinking less alcohol, which has often been an important part of businesses’ revenue.”
In a statement to CBC News, a City of Edmonton spokesperson said the city has provided millions of dollars to businesses and organizations to support and encourage private investments in downtown businesses, buildings and events to increase economic activity.
Spokesperson Mary-Ann Thurber said this includes the Downtown Action Plan Fund, which will invest $3 million in 2026 into community-led projects that increase interest in the downtown, as well as the Downtown Vibrancy Fund, which provided over $14 million to 126 projects to support vibrancy efforts between 2022 and 2024.
“I’ve seen this city overcome enormous challenges before,” DeCock said in his statement. “But recovery won’t happen through hope alone.
“It will require leadership, accountability, restoring access, bringing people back downtown and rebuilding confidence among the people willing to risk their own capital.”