Our sixth annual Indigenous issue has a little bit of everything — hundreds of millions of dollars of ongoing downtown redevelopment, a new airport in Thompson, Anishinaabe artwork in space as well as cool restaurants serving interesting and delicious food.
Indigenous investment is impacting life in Winnipeg in a way it never has before and everybody — Indigenous and non-Indigenous people alike— stands to benefit in the coming months, years and even generations.
Southern Chiefs’ Organization and the Manitoba Métis Federation are leading the way, reimagining three signature buildings in the business core — the former Hudson’s Bay store, Portage Place Shopping Centre and one of the founding members of the original banker’s row, the Bank of Montreal building at Portage and Main. All three were in various stages of decline and usage but are having much-needed
new life breathed back into them.
While those are high-profile improvements downtown, I’m just as fascinated by the Indigenous-owned restaurants that are not only carving out their own niches but are increasingly doing so in neighbourhoods that aren’t traditionally home to Indigenous entrepreneurs and chefs.
Every neighbourhood has a coffee shop and how fun is it to have so many locally-owned cafes taking on Starbucks and Tim Hortons and having so much success? Sabrina Carnevale explains why consumers are doing a double take when it comes to their coffee purchases and are choosing to supporting local. (She also appears on the Manitoba Inc. Podcast to speak further about the many grounds for success.)
Ahem.
I took a friend of mine from out of town to the Empty Cup on Academy Road recently and told him it was one of the locations that Starbucks had abandoned because it didn’t have a drive-thru. When we walked in on a sunny Saturday morning, the place was packed and there were 15 people in line ahead of us.
“I can see why Starbucks didn’t like this location,” my friend said with a smirk. I haven’t seen the books but with so many of the locally-owned shops expanding throughout Winnipeg and beyond — Empty Cup is about to open its first location in Saskatchewan — it can only mean one thing: Winnipeggers are increasingly buying local coffee. That keeps money in the community and province. Economists call it “reducing economic leakage” but it’s really about shopping where you live and supporting the entrepreneurs in your communities.
Let’s hope that attitude can keep spreading to other purchasing decisions.
Geoff Kirbyson
Publisher, Manitoba Inc.
