By Staff
September 8, 2015
BURLINGTON, ON
Keeping a downtown vibrant, healthy and attractive with the right mix of merchants is easier said than done.
The location was good: was it the prices?; the service? Many people thought a butcher shop was just what the downtown core needed – apparently not.
For every ten stores that open – ten find they have to close their doors after six months of toughing it out and finding that the great idea they had just didn’t work.
Setting up a new business is not an easy undertaking. That lesson got punched home for the butcher shop that took a brave step and opened up for business at the corner of Lakeshore and Brant street – which is about as downtown core as you can get.
A sad message about a dream dashed.
It didn’t work out – and the doors were recently closed.
Is there an opportunity for some comment, reflection on what didn’t work and why?
just like Rick
Editor: Please correct his name: Igor (typing error)
I was thinking that Igor is a troll, just in there for fun. He says ridiculous things that cannot be serious.
The written accent is too much to be real.
That’s funny it’s what my husband always says about you Tom. Without the accent bit of course.
Well tell him to put up something to contribute to the discussion besides empty sniping by his wife.
Igor,
Just like Councilor Rick Craven…you either don’t get it, won’t get it or don’t want to get it!!
Igor,
You are mising the point that I was trying to make to you personally about the pier – not the meat or the store.
All the best!
Ok Madame Skinner, so you make clear now, you say the pier is the problem why meat store is now closed. This is very interesting observation because small boat is unable to tie up to pier that is why there is no more meat? I now understanding your very strange opinion.
You wouldn’t need to park if there were more residents that were walking distance away. Believe it or not downtown Burlington has the highest real estate prices in the city and lowest income per capita in the city. See the problem here? We need real people and not retirees on minimal fixed incomes living downtown so they can actually SPEND money and stimulate the local businesses.
The 28 Storey Adi proposal will do just that. Now if we can get other developers to be interested in development here and follow suit….maybe businesses will stay open.
Igor,
You must not live in the same Burlington as the rest of us!! No small boats can tie up to the pier. Really, I’m trying to break it to you gently!!
Madame Skinner, thank you but it is not possible this is only reason why meat store is now closed. Sorry to must be telling you, small boat problem is not always meat problem. Meat store closed for other reasons also, not just because small boat.
maybe they should have sold liquor as well…
I live 2 blocks from the Brant Street Butcher. Parking was not an issue. The prices were outrageous and the service mediocre. If i am going to pay $50.00 for a steak I want to be sitting in a restaurant and be served. I don’t mind paying a bit more but I will not be gouged. The owner obviously did not know her market. The store became an “event” visit -meaning that people would not spend this kind of money on a daily basis, only for special occasions, or not at all. Prepared foods might have been more in demand, but if the owner used the same markup she would not be successful.
More condos are not the answer. Someone with a good business plan who knows the needs of the community can be successful.
Yes and we would be parking our boats at the $18 million dollar pier (the one that was supposed to be for transient tie up so that people could shop locally)!! Oh sorry…yachts…as that is how big our boats would have to be to be able to tie up
Yes but for people who have small boat, butcher can bring meat packages to pier location or beach and give to customer waiting in boat. Same like order pizza by calling ahead of the time for pick up.
It’s the experience for the customer. Few people are going to drive and pay for parking. Also lakeshore is often congested at peek times making it difficult to get into the store. They built Clapson’s corners in a field with roads and parking – this gave them immediate access to about 250,000 people that could get there in 15 minutes.
This is not to say that we don’t want to invest in alternative transportation – we do – just don’t do it at the expense of customers coming by car. You need retail spaces with places to park and a good experience for people walking and a good experience for people using transit. It’s not that we are have been conditioned to do our shopping in one place – large retailers constantly listen to change themselves to the wants of customers.
If you congest the road system in south Burlington retailers will hop north and you will be left with endless soviet style apartment blocks and nothing else.
In motherland we not have this problem. This country people are lazy and use car for everything. In this city there is lake, people can come to meat store by boat, or by bus, or bicycle, or taxi, or motorcycle, or walking on sidewalk. If this building was used as liquor store, it would still be open.
There is a huge parking garage (free on weekends and evenings) half a block away from the store. That’s a shorter (and far more pleasant) walk than you can find at most big box retailers. I don’t think a lack of parking is really to blame.
A lack of other similar grocery destinations and a populace that is conditioned to do all their shopping in one place (big-box format) are more important factors in the survival of businesses such as these. High value of downtown land compared to elsewhere in the city means high rent, which means higher prices than can be found a short drive away at the edge of town. For most people, meat is a staple, only rarely a specialty item we are willing to pay premium prices for.
So long as we continue to undervalue the outer areas of our city (the many hundreds of plots of land with acres of barren asphalt that detracts from the value of anything within eyesight), the big box retailers owned by foreign conglomerates will continue to have a massive financial advantage over mom & pop whose profits stay in Burlington.
1. I am always saddened to see a downtown merchant fail. There are many other Brant Street retailers who face the same issues and some have learned to overcome them. As someone with 25 years of experience in the food business, I observed that this store lacked a value proposition that would cause people to go to the trouble of stopping and parking to benefit from it. After the opening there was little or nothing in the way of advertising and specials to induce people to shop the store. In an economy where meat prices are already sky high, it is difficult to achieve the markups that the butcher needed to survive.
2. As to the density question, one of my most successful outlets was in a downtown Toronto mixed-use high rise. Despite rather impressive population numbers, I found that about 1/3 of the condo owners were 60+, spent their winters in Florida and their summers traveling. Another 1/3 were young childless couples or singles who worked long hours and led active social lives. They took most of their meals in restaurants or as takeout close to where they worked not where they lived. That left me with only 1/3 as real potential customers. Fortunately, the store survived on the office population quite unlike the market area for Brant Street. So to those who think that 28 storeys is retail Nirvana, you are delusional.
This was perfectly predictable right from the start, in my opinion, as that is what I thought right at the opening and after my one and only visit to the shop.
Besides the parking issue, there were all kinds of quality and quantity issues that are inherent in the store size, and people’s shopping habits are not still in 1960 before the big stores moved in, car-centricity took hold, and shopping centralized in and near malls, with a different business model.
A number of business people along Plains Rd have given small grocers a try and failed. Bernardino’s had a go with a green grocery and meat counter, but this space is now Nona’s restaurant.
Bernardino’s is right across the street from the Drewlo apartment complex with 7 buildings, and that was supposed to provide a customer base, as promised by the city, that failed to materialize.
All the commercial space in that building has sat empty for more than a year, but today I saw a “leased” sign on three adjoining doors at the east end. I don’t know what the plans are.
Another small space in Mosaic tried to sell vegetables and failed to survive pretty quickly. This is another townhouse and apartment condo development that was supposed to provide a customer base, but didn’t really.
Just today, I saw that another food oriented shop, located in the new townhouse development in the old Mercedes dealer location, had opened and closed in the blink of maybe two months.
I likely missed something, but these observations are just for a short section of Plains Rd. All we got really was more traffic and gridlock.
To return to this story, we are in the Downtown, where I’m told, walking is the way to go and what residents say they like. Didn’t save the butcher shop.
At public meetings for Ward 1, and in personal correspondence, I’m told that a grocery store might come, and the employment that is being displaced by residential redevelopment of commercial properties in the name of intensification might come, “in the long run”.
I remind you of the famous economist, Keynes, who said, “in the long run we are all dead”.
It might have worked if there had been a drive-thru window so you could just stay in your car and not look for a parking space.
This city does not have as walkable, vibrant, and desirable environment downtown that supports retail business like Oakville or Hamilton. Parking is not the issue.
How many times have I driven by this store ,wanting to check it out only to realize no parking in area so I head up North to my neck of the woods and visit big box store with competitive prices .ample parking etc Busineeses need to realize that Downtown Burlington is not the “it” place to be and whole bunch of retail space north of QEW with plenty of customers willing to spend money
PARKING!! Parking for this business was particularly difficult. You could never be sure to find a space and if you did then you had to pay (not always an issue of the cost but the inconvenience). All things being equal why would you drive to Brant St and Lakeshore when there are other options that are much more convenient.
If someone is “running out to grab a steak” they don’t want to park 10 minutes or more away. Turns a quick trip to the store into a 45 minute event.
Let’s not equate this to the need for even more dense development in our downtown core. There is already one large project underway so we don’t need to add more, before it is complete. There is already very limited parking downtown and we are just going to make the problem worse.
Parking is not necessary. I discuss benefits of soviet style system in my other comments you will see, and (lazy) people must think of living outside the car.
No parking, wilted salad/vegetables, higher prices, indifferent service. Probably a bad location and too large and I would expect expensive premises.
PARKING is the big issue. My Girl Friend’s Closet also moved…parking was a big issue for them as well.
A couple of 28 story buildings might keep more than a few businesses alive. But that’s not a suggestion you can print I am guessing.
Maybe we can keep dissuading development and see how many businesses our fragile population can support..