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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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNo single decision brought us here,\u201d Chris DeCock, president of the Greta chain of arcade bars, said in a public statement issued Monday.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t one tax increase. It wasn\u2019t patio fees. It wasn\u2019t paid parking. It wasn\u2019t hybrid work. It wasn\u2019t safety. It wasn\u2019t one construction project. It was death by a thousand cuts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other restaurants in the heart of Edmonton that have closed this year alone include kb&co (the chain still has other locations open), Khazana, B\u00fcndok, Kommune and PlayWright.\u00a0<\/p>\n
News of the closures has reverberated through Edmonton\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cRestaurants \u2026. our profit margin is very thin,\u201d Maya Richmond, owner of the Padmanadi restaurant chain that has its flagship location in central Edmonton, said in an interview with CBC News.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The family-run plant-based chain has two locations in Edmonton and a third location in Calgary.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything that disrupts the ecosystem \u2026 you’re either breaking even or you’re just not gonna make it,\u201d Richmond said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe intersection at 104th Street and 102nd Avenue, they did some targeted work around that,\u201d he said. \u201cThat opened two weeks ahead of schedule, even with all of the rain, because we know the impact that construction can have.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe 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.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of restaurants, in particular, took out loans during the COVID era to help stay afloat during those really challenging times,\u201d she told CBC News, as she spoke broadly about restaurants in general.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThose debts are now coming due.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stevenson also spoke about the impact that general concerns around affordability have had.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that the cost of groceries has increased quite considerably,\u201d she said. \u201cWe know that people are drinking less alcohol, which has often been an important part of businesses’ revenue.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen this city overcome enormous challenges before,\u201d DeCock said in his statement. \u201cBut recovery won\u2019t happen through hope alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will require leadership, accountability, restoring access, bringing people back downtown and rebuilding confidence among the people willing to risk their own capital.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":817611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":["post-817610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-edmonton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}