King Cob has cosy, lived-in feeling

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This article was published 11/10/2024 (697 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After their three-hour poetry lecture at the University of Winnipeg wrapped up last Tuesday, a pair of Wolseley sisters turned down Ellice Avenue toward Sherbrook Street, arriving at a small orange storefront that glowed with the promise of amber ale.

A few minutes later, both sisters’ partners arrived.

“I think this is our new place,” the younger sister later said, leaning back into the banquette that lines the western wall of King Cob Market Pub.

Situated next to the West End Cultural Centre, chef-owner and “publican” Darryl Friesen’s latest venture has a cosy, lived-in feeling, with a shimmering Douglas fir bartop, walls adorned with Friesen’s own paintings and a ceiling wrapped in floral designs inspired by his mother’s “crazy quilts.”

With orange walls calling to mind the colour scheme of New Orleans’ famed Cafe du Monde, the bar teems with reminders of Friesen’s worldly pursuits, using reclaimed materials to establish fresh life within a two-storey building that for years had sat waiting to become something again.

Friesen, 57, bought the building at 580 Ellice Ave., in 2018, convinced by its roughness that he’d found a diamond. At that point, Friesen was a decade into a successful career as a software developer, working with a company that specialized in promoting and tracking North American recycling habits.

After consulting with the West End Biz and the WECC, Friesen understood the potential of a renovation project.

“Back then, at least 30,000 people per year came to the WECC, so I knew we could tap into that. It felt like a pretty good basis for a business model,” he says.

Between the WECC, Andrew Davidson’s Gargoyle Theatre and Christa Bruneau-Guenther’s Feast bistro, the corner of Ellice and Sherbrook was already hopping. After opening on Sept. 13, King Cob adds yet another kernel of vibrancy to one of the West End’s most central corners.

Friesen wanted to take his time with the bar, working with friends Bernard McLeod and Stephen Jay to painstakingly complete every task — the millwork, the tiling and the painting — that they could. But a 2023 layoff from his software employer sped up the process, triggering the crew to go into overdrive.

“It was the kick in the ass we needed,” says Friesen, whose experience at King Cob is not his first foray into Winnipeg’s restaurant world.

In his 20s, Friesen, the son of a trucker, was a driving force in the kitchen of some of the city’s best restaurants. His first gig was at Pazzia’s, an Italian restaurant in the basement of the Merchant Building that former Free Press restaurant critic Marion Warhaft named the top establishment in the city.

Later, he worked as sous chef at the Prairie Oyster in The Forks and Tango on Corydon Avenue.

“I got sick of working in kitchens for too much work, too little pay,” he says, adding that he let the good times roll in a New Orleans burrito shop for a few years before returning to Winnipeg for software work.

“I’m actually surprised to be back as the guy in the kitchen.”

But once he returned, Friesen reclaimed some of that youthful joy in developing his menu, an amalgam of South American flavours made possible in part by a West End connection. The secret to his achiote chicken isn’t much of a secret at all: the spice blend comes from El Izalco Market on Sargent Avenue.

Friesen credits a cook-and-hold smoker as “the workhorse” of his menu, which includes Venezuelan arepas, cumin fried rice, kaiser sammies on City Bread buns and a variety of slow-cooked pork-butt applications.

The smoky aroma adds to the glow of the Cafe du Monde walls, while Friesen’s art — a placeholder, according to the owner — is better than he’ll let on. Above the bar, a characteristically strong piece by Winnipeg tattooist Don Ritson represents a promise that the bar will serve as an unofficial gallery space for local visual artists.

Friesen admits that while he did a ton of work, he didn’t manage alone, crediting McLeod, a partner in the business, for untold hours of labour and business development. Architect Blaine Repco of Ant Architecture, which specializes in building upgrades and adaptive reuse, consulted on the renovations. Stephen Jay, meanwhile, did a considerable amount of custom woodworking, using materials salvaged from the pre-renovation structure to cut down on costs and add a historical patina to the new business.

The business is new, but the sign says “Est. 1966,” a nod to the fact Friesen’s parents met just down Ellice Avenue during that year off of Furby Street. The owner says there are reminders of his folks everywhere throughout the bar, including on a pair of placards – the trucker’s and trucker’s wife commandments – that hang behind the bar. Friesen’s dad was one of the first patrons.

“He didn’t like the beer too much, but there were a few times I just saw him smiling and looking around,” Friesen says.

In the first month of the King Cob’s existence, it’s already drawn considerable crowds for drinks before and after shows at the West End Cultural Centre, as well as some admiration from longtime neighbourhood denizens pleased to see the building — standing since the early 20th century — put to good use.

“I’m seeing a lot of people come that are becoming regulars,” says Friesen, who hopes his pub can help reverse the spell of urban sprawl, drawing people to spend time in the West End.

“We really need to think about how to rejuvenate these areas. We have a bad habit of tearing down problems instead of dealing with them.”

Perhaps a few of those problems could be solved across the bar at 580 Ellice Ave.

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com