Why Edmonton food brands love to pop up
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."
