As more people return to the office in the city’s core this fall, some downtown businesses are cautiously optimistic, but feel that more needs to be done to push downtown revitalization. Anish Mehra, owner of East India Company, which has a location on Somerset Street West, said he’s hoping to see an increase in foot […]
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As more people return to the office in the city’s core this fall, some downtown businesses are cautiously optimistic, but feel that more needs to be done to push downtown revitalization.
Anish Mehra, owner of East India Company, which has a location on Somerset Street West, said he’s hoping to see an increase in foot traffic this fall, though it may not happen all at once.
“We are hoping for a boost in customers this fall. I think the reality will probably be that it’ll take people a couple of weeks to get used to it. On our end, we’ve planned for September and October to be a sort of re-awakening for people,” he said.
In July, most federal civil servants started going to the office a minimum of four days a week, joining many other private-sector employees who have also returned to their downtown offices.
While the nine-to-five crowd has largely returned, Mehra said he doesn’t expect this fall to be a complete return to a pre-pandemic downtown Ottawa.
“It’s a re-education of the downtown. People have forgotten what restaurants they used to go to. There’s a whole bunch of new people who took jobs in the last few years and are not used to that downtown vibe, so it’s slowly coming back to normal. I don’t think it’s going to be like a light switch. I think it’s going to be more like a dimmer. It’s going to take a little bit before we see that 2019 feel again,” he said.
Plus, Mehra said, customers’ spending habits have changed, which will affect foot traffic at businesses like East India Company.
“We definitely had a big year in 2023, then we noticed in 2024 and 2025 that people were being a little more conscious with money, between food costs and mortgage and interest rates … people may cut back on beers and wine,” he said, adding that he’s seen an increase in spending on side dishes.
Still, he said he will have more staff on-call to adjust to growing crowd sizes. “It's been almost 25 years (that we’re) in downtown Ottawa. We’ve seen road construction and other things affect our business. We’re used to ups and downs here and we’re pretty quick at adapting to them.”
While Mehra said it would be beneficial to see a stronger lunch crowd, he said his business is not dependent on the commuter crowd, instead seeing strong interest in dinner, weekend brunch and catering. However, he argues that seeing more restaurants open for lunch would add vibrancy to the area.
“There’s a number of restaurants on Elgin (Street) that still aren’t open for lunch because they don’t see the volume yet. It’d be nice to see these places open. It’s nice to see people walking around downtown and I think that sort of ripples and affects more businesses downtown.”
When it comes to downtown revitalization, Mehra said adding more people downtown can only help, but more needs to be done.
“In my business, when we’re trying to solve a problem, I always say that there’s no silver bullet to solving a problem. For downtown revitalization, I’d agree. I don’t think it’s going to be one thing that is the solution to everything,” he said, adding that having stronger transit service and continuing to add residential units would help downtown revitalization.
Over on Sparks Street, Mike Campbell, co-owner of Stolen Goods Cocktail Bar, said he’s looking forward to a busier fall after a sleepy summer. But, despite high expectations, Campbell said downtown businesses should continue to brace for a post-pandemic “new normal.”
“We never operated this bar during COVID, but I worked at bars downtown. I don’t think we’re ever going to see what we saw pre-COVID. I have memories of going downtown with my grandparents and seeing the sidewalks so full of people that you couldn’t see the sidewalks. I don’t think we’re ever going to get back there, but I think we’ll get back to a busier version of this new normal,” he said.
Part of that “new normal” is a change in people’s habits that occurred during the pandemic, such as a decreased consumption of alcohol.
“People’s drinking and spending habits have definitely changed. It’s just finding what that new normal is going to look like for us … People are spending less. (They’ll) have one drink, instead of two.”
With Stolen Goods closing at the end of the year, Campbell said he and his business partner are already making plans for the bar’s successor.
“We are currently scheduled to open our new bar on April 1, which will be open more days of the week and opening earlier to accommodate the after-work crowd,” he said.
The new bar will also close earlier, Campbell said, as he’s noticed that downtown workers are more likely to stay for post-work drinks and go home rather than close out the bar in the wee hours of the morning.
While having more residents living downtown has helped his business, Campbell said he feels that efforts to revitalize the downtown have plateaued as office-to-residential conversions seem to have halted in favour of RTO mandates.
“Parking spaces are a pretty drastic problem. We went from being able to pick different lots per day to, now, we pay $700 a month for two of us to park downtown and guarantee ourselves a spot,” he said.
At the Centretown BIA, executive director SabriNa Lemay said downtown revitalization efforts will continue to pick up as more people return to the core on a more regular basis.
“I think it gives us a lot more to work with when it comes to strategy, knowing that workers are coming back downtown, what we’re highlighting, what we’re looking to do. When we look at our pedestrianized streets, our ‘Street Seats’ locations, we’re giving people the opportunity to do more.
“I think one of the things we sometimes forget when we are working remotely all the time is how many great things we do have in our downtown core,” she said.
Lemay said BIA member businesses in Centretown have already noticed an uptick in foot traffic since federal civil servants have returned to the core four times a week, and hope the trend will continue into the fall.
Still, she said businesses have accepted that the return of federal workers doesn’t directly translate into a return of pre-pandemic operations.
“I think hybrid (work) has been established. I don’t think it’s ever going to feel exactly the same and we’ve all shifted. Businesses have shifted. It’s going to be different, but different isn’t always a bad thing.”
Moving into the fall, Lemay said the BIA will focus on placemaking, with a mural being painted on Bank Street in partnership with Operation Come Home, and planning for the 2027 budget.
“One of the things we’re working on behind-the-scenes is really strategizing, from a public realm and beautification standpoint, a 10-year plan of what Centretown is going to look like,” she said.
