The Blue Note Park Cafe and the Fortune Block.

The Beer Can has moved to the Granite Club. Long live Blue Note Park Cafe. With Times Changed and Modern Lunch working in tandem on the old Blue Note site, food and entertainment return to a patio for the summer. This is a good thing.

The site had been originally the Main Spot Diner but in 1983 just as I was finishing high school, it became the Blue Note Cafe and everything changed. It was the beginning of late night places open till 4 AM and there were a few of them. Prior to this, you were restricted in your choices primarily to Sal's. And Sal's didn't play music. Just the long, hard cold stare of the staff at fraternity boys with ravenous hunger of 2:00 AM.

There are probably more seats in Blue Note Park than there ever was at the Cafe which has 65 seats with it being packed double that in a building that was uneven, unsafe and unbelievable. The house band was the Crash Test Dummies who would also be serving your drinks. On any given day you might run into locally famous musicians but also David Bowie's band, Rod Stewart's band, Burton Cummings jamming all night, Slash singing, NHL players from every team including Mark Messier singing and on and on it went. Neil Young took the stage and in a legendary performance introduced himself as The Squires. That was in 1987 and led to Neil Young and The Blue Note's album.

Alas, it was only 10 years in that location (even expanding to the barbershop next door could not save it). The building was in just awful shape. The Blue Note moved to Portage Avenue near Arlington for five years after but it was the end of an era. Live music places were closing all over the city. Moreover, Winnipeg was in a bruising recession.

The sweet memories of the place lived on and music continued to play a few doors down at the High and Lonesome club, a place with 85 seats in 1992. As for the Blue Note building, it received enough repairs to continue on as the Fat Angel for years until it too faced the wreckage ball. And then it was a gravel lot that owners wanted to put a parking on.

By 2014, High and Lonesome club was facing its own Waterloo. Smashed into by a runaway car and a landlord determined to end the lease of the club to sell to developers who intended to bulldoze the entire block.

The Pollard Family of Pollard Banknote fame stepped in as angel investors and have slowly restored the whole block. Sadly, the pandemic has kept the entire area from taking its bows because everything has been closed or on restricted access and remain so now.

However, outdoor patios have a little more leeway because of the pandemic and are allowed more distanced people and that has allowed High and Lonesome Club and Modern Lunch to work together in the old Beer Can site to create Blue Note Park Cafe.

A menu is posted here and music is the order of the day for the patio. And if there is further opening check out Modern Lunch itself or High and Lonesome Club along with some of the other businesses nearby.

Be mindful of the construction on Main.

I parked along a side street myself.

Now that this block has been lovingly re-done I think we can expect great things. And who doesn't love a patio?

Interesting, I noticed U of W's radio station has an off campus address but I have no information on what is happening with it.

And next to CKUW is Livestock, an apparel company.

And Modern Electric Lunch has yet to live without the pandemic. It seems it will do well with the new  patio, residential population as well office and students in the fall.

It will be great to hear music again from this legendary block along Main Street in downtown Winnipeg.

Wheelchair Accessible in Winnipeg

Construction in Winnipeg has often meant inaccessible for those with any type of wheel assistance. These platforms have been all all over town this year, notably at every bus stop along Portage for re-surfacing. This one is outside the Bluenote Park Cafe. We often complain the about the City but in this case...well done.

The New Fort Garry Patio

The Fort Garry Hotel Sunset Terrace and Bar was opened on the new day before Canada Day. Tree planters create a little bit of space of the western side of the hotel and face out to Broadway. At 96 seats, it is the right size to create a bit of life on one of the most people friendly streets in town.

Like a lot of businesses, it is doing a slow roll out. Part of the is the restrictions in place as the province moves to double vaccinations. The other part is that many businesses are re-staffing and it requires patience to get teams back together, And in this case, it is a new business operation so first impressions are important.

In the next two weeks expect a seven day operation split between breakfast and afternoon/early evening shifts. There will not be festivals or concerts of any size till fall and most offices are no where near capacity. 

The convention, trade and festival season is going to boom when it is safe to do but the desire to be outside is not likely to go away. 

Given how many restaurants that have gone under, a re-thinking on pick-up windows, delivery and patios is inevitable. For hotels and convention centres, you wonder if they are not thinking about it as well. Several patios have opened lately in places that seemed unlikely. 

And this is a good thing.