Coffee, tables and chairs to go

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This article was published 19/08/2024 (453 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After decades, a Polo Park coffee shop’s cup is nearing empty.

On Monday, Second Cup Café had customers buying its drinks and branded items — and tables and chairs. By Aug. 31, everything must be gone.

It’s not the path Qaiser Usmani would have chosen. He purchased the Winnipeg shopping mall’s Second Cup chain location six years ago — and he’d like to continue operating it there.

Second Cup has been a presence at CF Polo Park for probably 40 years, Usmani estimated Monday. Some patrons tell him they’ve been customers that long, he said.

But the first-floor shop’s lease ends in August, and another company has offered to pay higher rent, according to Usmani.

“They told me it’s not a personal thing,” he said, describing interactions with the landlord. “It’s a business decision.”

However, Usmani hoped to find another place within the shopping centre; he’d take something smaller, even a kiosk, he relayed.

However, the mall seemed to want to move in “a different way” — there was no space available, Usmani said.

CF Polo Park leadership didn’t respond to questions by print deadline Monday.

Now, Usmani is selling his tables and chairs at $50 per set and searching for a new location. He expects to see Freedom Mobile take over the former café space.

The wireless telecom services provider, owned by Quebecor, has a kiosk nearby.

Neither Freedom Mobile nor CF Polo Park confirmed the move by print deadline. If correct, Freedom Mobile will sit beside sector rival Bell MTS and neighbour a Rogers outlet.

Once Second Cup closed on Graham Avenue in 2020, the Polo Park franchise became the city’s bestseller, Usmani said.

There are three other Winnipeg locations — in Bridgwater, Kildonan Place and St. Vital Centre — Usmani isn’t involved with. Brandon is also home to a Second Cup; the chain established in 1975 has more than 180 locations across Canada.

“Here, I had no problems. It was very peaceful,” Usmani said, sitting at a table outside his shop. “That’s why I wanted to stay.”

He said he will only open a café or other business venture if it’s within another building. Usmani previously owned a Chicken Delight franchise for 17 years; then, he was hit with 10 break-ins and sky-high insurance deductibles.

An airport, university, hospital or mall locale would be ideal, Usmani underscored. For now, he’s preparing to job or franchise hunt.

Most of his dozen staff have found employment elsewhere within CF Polo Park, he said.

“Everybody’s sad about it,” Leo Andan, a long-time customer of Second Cup, said of the impending closure.

He sat with his wife and friends Monday morning — 11 a.m., the same time as usual. The group meets for coffee a couple times per week.

They greet cleaners and shop owners who frequent the area. Roughly a dozen people sip together — people who found each other through their love of Second Cup and now call their peers “family.”

Heather and Terry Smith estimate they’ve been customers for at least a decade. They’d come during the COVID-19 pandemic, occupying a booth in the back and yelling to friends from mandated six-foot distances.

(Usmani said he remortgaged his house during the pandemic period to pay the store’s rent.)

“I don’t understand — there’s so many open stores,” exclaimed Heather Smith, adding the situation is “unfair.”

The number of cellphone service retailers in the mall already far exceeds coffee shops, she continued.

On Monday, CF Polo Park had four such cafés, including Second Cup. It had 17 cellphone outlets and kiosks, counting a Best Buy Express and doubles of Bell and Rogers.

Usmani said he had no problems with the local landlord; he wonders if the decision came from Cadillac Fairview’s head office in Toronto.

Second Cup’s closure comes as CF Polo Park prepares for major renovations to its upstairs. Businesses are shuffling to make room for London Drugs, which will span some 25,000 square feet in former Zellers territory.

Shops like Build-A-Bear and Pandora are relocating; others, like Urban Outfitters, won’t reappear in the mall.

Construction on the second-floor wing is slated to begin Oct. 15.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com