Jollibee's to Open Third Location on Nairn

Jollibee's restaurant opened their very first Canadian restaurant in 2016 at Polo Park to huge success. For several months there were line-ups every day and some Filipino Canadians coming from other provinces just to to get a taste of home.

Since then other Jollibee's have opened in Canada including another on McPhillips in 2017.  Success for the Philippine's biggest restaurant export always meant expanding beyond serving its own community.  It is that confidence that probably led to the decision to expand to eastern Winnipeg in the former Chicken Chef location (2006-2021) at 1130 Nairn.

Chicken Chef moved further east to 1600 Regent from their former location. After 15 years at a site that once was Taco Time and several other restaurants,  Chicken Chef has proved it has a customer base in the area.

 Nairn/Regent is an extremely busy road. The side of the road your business is on can really dictate the traffic seen. On Nairn, it is almost always on the south side. It could be quite busy at lunch and dinner at this Jollibee's location.

Look to see them open in weeks.

A Little Pizza Heaven Coming to Regent and Day

A Little Pizza of Heaven was approved for Regent and Day at the Committee level for their new sign at the former location of Pizza Pizza and before that Pizza Hut. The local Councillor added that exterior colours (now orange) be changed to colours matching the sign.

This will be the fourth location for the pizza restaurant that will be trying to make it where an international Goliath was as well as top Winnipeg group. From humble beginning on Portage Avenue where University of Winnipeg students once munch on their fare, they have thrived in Osborne, St. James, St. Vital and Regent.

Regent and Day is a prominent corner in Transcona and hearkens back to a time when the street was the main commercial drive for a city. It still is although malls have made it more difficult. Still, it is places where you can hang your hat and take-out and have delivered that can thrive.

Look to see them open in the near future.

Which Rona in Winnipeg Will Close?

In this blog a while back I indicated that Sears Canada was struggling mightily. It still is. However, after an injection of cash from their sale of some of the large leases to Nordstrom's, they will continue the struggle to emerge as viable. It is not hard to see Sear looking enviously at the Hudson Bay Company flush with cash from ending Zellers achieve profitability.

Target is breathing down all their necks as open more and more stores. Sears has indicated they could close more stores but it isn't their first option. Rumours continue to swirl over their Polo Park location. The suspicion is this is the last chance for the company to make a go of it without a major contraction or sale to someone else. The large Polo Park location is looked upon hungrily by competitors.

The latest company in Canada to talk about shutting stores down is Rona. The decision to drop or sell the big box stores of the home improvement retailer was mulled over the last weeks. The story is that quite a few of the stores including some in Winnipeg are losing money or have thin margins.

The new head of Rona says the option of closing or selling the 28 big box stores outside Quebec is off the table as a whole (The company also has 28 big box formats in Quebec). That is not to say that some unprofitable stores might not be closed. Last year the company closed 5 locations.

Looking at Winnipeg, it is not easy to see what Rona might be closed of the three big boxes. There is the Sargent location at Polo Park (once a Revy), the Panet Road location in Transcona and the Kenaston location down the street from IKEA.

What complicates this whole thing is Lowe's Home Improvement continues to add locations across Canada. They are scheduled to begin construction of a massive store on the Seasons of Tuxedo site. If there is one store in Winnipeg that will face brutal competition, it might be the Kenaston location.

Lowe's actively pursued Rona last year but Quebec enterprise politics prevented a deal from happening. Unless something dramatic happens, it is possible Rona will have to re-visit the sale or closure of some assets.

Could it be Kenaston? Could it be all of the Rona big boxes?