A new pop-up venue called The Hub on Whyte Avenue and the latest round of the Vagabond pop-up at Under the High Wheel are just two of several culinary pop-ups emerging across Edmonton this summer.
Operators behind these culinary pop-ups, or businesses that temporarily occupy an often-shared space to offer anything from bagels to French fare, told Taproot that they like the business model because it comes with lower costs than owning a bricks-and-mortar restaurant, allows operators to share customers, and spurs creativity.
"I always encourage younger chefs, especially, to start doing more of their own pop-ups," Vagabond co-owner Christine Sandford told Taproot. "You're learning how to do payroll. You're learning how to organize yourself. You're learning how to execute menus, work in spaces that are unconventional, and become really adaptable."
Sandford and partner Roger Letourneau have operated pop-ups since 2011. They debuted Vagabond at Take Care Café last summer, and are now running Vagabond as a bistro-style experience at Under the High Wheel, a daytime-only restaurant at the corner of Whyte Avenue and 102 Street.
Just a little to the west on Whyte, near Calgary Trail, is The Hub, a new space entirely dedicated to pop-ups inside the Hub Cigar Building. It was conceived by Meuwly's business partners Glendon Tan, who owns the building, and Peter Keith. Meuwly's already has a pop-up space at its headquarters on 124 Street near 107 Avenue, so why open a second pop-up spot?
"Ultimately, (Meuwly's) is in a basement on 124 Street," Keith told Taproot. "The opportunity to have street-level (space) on Whyte Avenue is a different platform. It reaches far more consumers, creates much more exposure, and helps us connect with a customer base that maybe doesn't drive around the city."
The current operators at The Hub are Beb's Bagels and Balay Coffee, who are confirmed to operate until the end of the summer but may extend their stays, Keith said. (Both also use the commercial kitchen space at Meuwly's.)
"We're sharing our art (with) each other, sharing markets, and sharing community members," Mavi Tolentino, a co-owner of Balay Coffee, told Taproot about working out of The Hub. "The biggest thing is just connecting the city more and exposing our community members to other places that we also share values with."
Tolentino and several others told Taproot that aside from the key element of cost savings, one benefit of pop-ups is growing your customer base due to multiple brands with their own followings sharing one space. "We serve the queers and the POCs and the Filipinos, and there's not really a lot of businesses that are dedicated to or even owned by our community members."
Kerwin Alfonso, Mavi Tolentino, Mario Pellerin, and Haerim Kim of Balay Coffee stand at The Hub, a new space on Whyte Avenue dedicated to culinary pop-ups. Tolentino said the pop-up model gives businesses the freedom to find out how to succeed before incurring the high costs of owning a café or restaurant. (Supplied)
Tolentino and co-owner Mario Pellerin launched Balay Coffee in January after Tolentino closed Intent Coffee, their previous concept, at Southgate Centre in 2021 due to financial strain. Tolentino said the pop-up model works as a reset because operators incur less expense as they tweak their business practices and figure out what customers are looking for.
"This whole experience is about co-creation," Tolentino said. "As a business owner, you have your vision, how you want to run things, what you want to present, and your intentions. But your audience — the people that you want to serve — also plays a huge part in how you operate your café and what your vision could look like."
While Balay Coffee and Beb's Bagels have their own workforce, Sandford from Vagabond said working inside Under the High Wheel has given her access to the host's front-of-house staff. And while she echoed benefits described by Tolentino, she said there are challenges to the pop-up business, too.
"It's not necessarily easier than running a restaurant in the amount of work that it takes. For us, it's just (the two of us) a lot of the time. We're doing everything ourselves."
One challenge for Sandford is prep work, because Vagabond can't use the kitchen at Under the High Wheel during the day. All things lead back to Meuwly's, because that's where Sandford and Letourneau do most of their prep cooking. (It's also where they work on their other business, Lessig Ferments.)
Sandford said she doesn't really see herself owning a restaurant unless it is more than just a restaurant. She previously told Taproot that a tourism-driven food experience might be the right fit in the future. For now, though, she is focusing on the culinary freedom and growth opportunities offered by a pop-up.
"We like to keep challenging ourselves and keep learning," Sandford said. "I think we're always scared of plateauing. We want to keep seeing how we can evolve."