Anyone else see this? [General]

2018 Sep 4

www.foodnetwork.ca!Food-Hall-Ottawa-Ottawa-ON-e1520650511265
Ottawa new food hall?

[For those who don't want to click through to the hideously unresponsive Food Network site, this refers to a 6-business food court with 300 seats purportedly going into 50 O'Connor Street this fall. -warby]

2018 Sep 6
Huh... look at that.

Can't hurt that the light rail is going in to the same building.

2018 Sep 7
Doesn’t the Rideau Centre have a “Food Hall”?

2018 Sep 7
Tree, yes, but is it artisanal?

2018 Sep 7
Craft. It's all about 'craft'.

2018 Sep 7
Tree, yes, but is it artisanal?

2018 Sep 9
I know someone who is getting a spot, and he is very excited. It is expected to be very busy, and we've been ramping up production to help out when they open. Whenever that is. Luckily, my stuff doesn't have a shelf life. This will be a coffee shop / sandwich and quick bites / bar.

2018 Sep 9
Does anyone else find it a bit odd that this would be on the list of The Ultimate Guide to Canada’s Best Food Halls & it's no where near open yet??


2018 Sep 9
Good catch Terry! I put the Food Network only a few rungs above the Narcity-like dregs when it comes to saying anything they want in order to get traffic. It doesn't have to make sense... it just needs to sound exciting!

Speaking of Narcity, they recently listed King Eddy (Clarence St), Cacao 70 (William St), Khao Thai (Murray St), Mezzanotte (Murray St), and Table 85 (Bronson St) in a list of "The Best Restaurants in Ottawa that are Surprisingly ALL in the Suburbs."

At first I was horrified by the inaccuracy but then I realized it's probably a deliberate troll to get horrified people like me to share the link and drive more traffic to their festering servers...

2018 Sep 9
It's not the first time this kind of thing has happened even with an established critic that once praised a restaurant that was a good week away from opening...

2018 Sep 10
clickbait article titles that promise 'ultimate' anything are hardly worth taking seriously. That said, the article was about 'food halls', it's a future shiny new food hall in a city they want clickies from. Not utterly off topic.

2018 Sep 11
God, how I hate Narcity and their policies.

2018 Sep 11
Narcity has policies?

2018 Sep 13
Maybe just the way that they still exist.

2018 Nov 1
So.... a food court.

2018 Nov 2
Please, a dining court.

I'm kind of curious how this is going to work with regards to booze and multiple vendors, including one whose whole deal is booze. Lining up for a beer before lining up for a taco isn't my kind of party. So maybe a tap or two at the food places, but but then they're eating into revenue at Jillian's joint. Fine, they still have cocktail business, but you're competing with Riviera, three blocks away, famous for cocktails, in a cooler setting. And I've never gone out for pho and thought, you know what would make this better? A two-cherry Manhattan, rocks.

Bit of a head-scratcher, to me.

2018 Nov 2
(ottawacitizen.com). Pretty much a food court with alcohol and a stage. It makes sense at Penn Station with commuters going in and out, but won't have a market in downtown Ottawa except at lunch. By the way, what ever happened to the food court at L'Esplanade Laurier?

2018 Nov 2
Rene Rodriguez taco place.
Fiazza.
Booze.
Doesn't shut down by 2pm weekdays.

...i'm in.

2018 Nov 2
Haven't been to any of the 'food halls' mentioned in the citizen article but we went to a very cool place in Mexico where the outdoor tables were surrounded by 'food truck' like stalls with one being a large bar a live band. Really loved it, all food (and drinks) were on one menu about a half dozen options, wood fired pizza, French style crepes, etc. lobster and other seafood roles, steak and other grilled meat, fusion Mexican, etc. we had waiters taking our orders and the owner's 7 year old child/grandchild hung out and rolled around in old style roller skates. Lots of fun, of course this was a small Mexican fishing town, a little different ...

who knows?


2018 Nov 3
full disclosure: I am involved in the food hall

It's understandable that people think this just a food court but trust me, when you see the interior design and see the space, you might end up changing your mind. The designers working on this project (Iron and Ivory) worked on a few booths at Assembly in Toronto and have done Common Eatery, Fairouz and Pure Kitchen here in Ottawa. Food courts don't really spend this amount of money and effort hiring designers like Iron and Ivory if they are building a food court. There is lots of custom designed furniture and fixtures in the place and it will have a very specific design theme, if you will, that runs through the place that doesn't scream "get back shopping".

On the subject of the booze, drinks etc: Liquor laws in Ontario make it impossible for every vendor to serve alcohol at their stations. Somebody needs to be responsible for monitoring etc and so really only one person can hold the liquor license for the whole place so that's why everyone doesn't have alcohol at their stations. Even if they could, imagine you hold the license and every vendor's staff is serving your booze.. how to you get paid and watch how much they are pouring and who's responsible if something bad happens? It would be a nightmare...

What I can tell you is that Q Bar is going to be rather sizeable and prominent inside the space so I wouldn't always assume there are going to be line up for drinks. Plus, the plan for Q Bar is have a bunch of taps, cans etc available as well as cocktails that don't take forever to make but still taste like something that did. That's where the barrel-aged cocktails come into play. So there is a certain amount of efficiency planned for Q Bar.

I have been to Assembly in Toronto, they have two big bars, one at the front and one at the back and it's almost three times the size of Queen St. Fare. We also went to 4 food halls in NYC in one day and not even all those places had bars and those that did, didn't really put a lot of effort or care into their cocktail program... Assembly does though and it shows in the vibe there. Somebody on Twitter or Instagram mentioned the Pennsy which we visited and it had a sports bar type vibe which isn't the vibe we're going for at Queen St. Fare.

And don't forget, this place has a stage and a full sound system A/V set up so it's going to be a live music venue that can hold 390 people so it's 6 restaurants, a bar/cocktail lounge and live music venue/club all rolled into one. There really isn't any other food hall we know if that's putting this much emphasis on the music... to the point of having a stage built into it. And the stage isn't some little platform... it's a full stage.

I can't wait for everyone here to see the place and try it out... I've been watching this thread for months since it originally popped up and was laughing when you all didn't think this was happening because we've been working on it for over a year.

2018 Nov 4
Who said it wasn’t happening?

2018 Nov 7
Was it because I used the word 'purportedly' in my addendum to the first post in this topic? My guarded language was a result of sharing second hand information, not an expression of doubt. Certainly nothing close to "you all didn't think this was happening." 👀

2018 Nov 14
I've been to something similar at the Forks in Winnipeg. It used to be a food court space in a touristy area that was meh ... Then they changed up the vendors to locals (lots had food trucks) with really good food, added the bar and communal tables. Works well. Hopefully someday I'll make it downtown.

2018 Dec 7
According to CBC radio the food hall opened yesterday. The only thing that has me truly excited right now is that there is a SEN Kitchen located in the food hall. Yes it is in fact owned by the same owners of SEN Lansdowne. I imagine it would be busy during breakfast and lunch service on weekdays since many office workers will be stopping in for a meal. The fact that it is located near busy bus stops and an LRT station can't hurt. I would be interested in seeing how it will make out in the evenings since the area is pretty dead after hours.

2018 Dec 7
I popped by for lunch today with my fiancé. Yeah, it was pretty busy, but it was also good and cool. We are def curious about how it is at the evenings, esepcially with Q bar.

2018 Dec 10
I got to attend the VIP opening Thursday night, sampled some food from each vendor and had a few beers.

Hoping they can generate some decent evening night traffic as they have done a great design job inside.


2018 Dec 11
I suspect the LRT station will be helpful in generating an after business hours crowd.