By Dorothy Dobbie
One of the nicest gifts to the St. James Assiniboine neighbourhood in the past 18 months, has been the opening of the spacious and gracious Cork and Flame Restaurant on Portage Avenue. Kyriakos Vogiatzakis (Keri, for short) opened the restaurant a year ago last spring and then was hit with the COVID-19 closure in March. It was a blow but, like every entrepreneur, he struggled back, applying for a temporary patio license as soon as restaurants were allowed to open again.
The first push back came when the city claimed the fence he had built around the patio was too tall. The second came when, without notice, the City closed his patio down because Keri had built a pergola over the area to offer some shade from the hot prairie sun.
Without going into all the convoluted details, which include the usual city run around with “you need this permit”, then “you need that permit”, then “we don’t allow structures over patios”, Keri lost most of his summer patio business. Despite Keri hiring an engineer and an architect in trying to comply with all the City demands, the City continued to stall and even went so far as to deny receiving required documentation.
It seems that the tale is wagging the dog at City Hall. Small business is being actively discouraged “just because” – sometimes, it’s because they just don’t like you. This has been going on for many years. Remember Milan Bodiroga and the lovely Restaurant Dubrovnik? The same city-official-types harassed him for years over a myriad of silly issues (he did build an outdoor patio on the second floor with a pergola over his kitchen!). They got him in the end by building a curbed bike lane in front of his entrance with no opening to allow diners to enter! Discouraged, he finally closed the restaurant and sold the property. A high-rise now exists there.
There are many other similar stories, but they can’t be told because businesses have been threatened that if they go to the press it will take them even longer to get the permits done. And it is not just time, it is money. Each of these permit applications comes with a heavy fee. In one case, this nonsense has been going on for more than a dozen years with the organization involved having spent literally millions trying to satisfy this dysfunctional (perhaps, even vindictive) civic system.
So, let us at least try as citizens to make up for what has been done to Keri and the Cork and Flame by spending a night out there. It is a large restaurant, but with COVID restrictions he must space you out, so be sure to make reservations for dinner. I hear the ribs are to die for. Or make it a leisurely breakfast with the family. They are open for all three meals at 3106 Portage Avenue.
Be sure to say hi and offer your best wishes.