Another downtown eatery bites the dust

Another longtime downtown Winnipeg restaurant has closed its doors, leaving another hole in the city’s core.

Rudy’s Eat & Drink announced on social media it was closing after 15 years in Manitoba Hydro Place but did not cite a reason.

“Cheers to the years of local beer, burger weeks, jets games, weddings, catering, stone soup week, DJ nights, charitable events and everything in between — we will hold these memories forever,” the post said. “The end of an era — but there’s always another chapter.”

General manager Mackenzie Robb declined to comment on the eatery’s closure. Rudy’s last day of service was on Friday.

Hydro spokesperson Peter Chura confirmed Rudy’s did not renew their lease at 360 Portage Ave., but provided no other details. The building is seeking a new tenant for the space, Chura said.

Rudy’s is the latest long-standing tenant in the downtown core to shutter. In July, Tavern United across from Canada Life Centre closed permanently, without citing a reason. The Keg on Garry Street served its last steak on July 29 with plans to move to Donald Street.

Earlier this month, the Giant Tiger on Donald Street announced it would be closing in November.

People around Hydro Place Monday afternoon were saddened to hear about Rudy’s closure. One Hydro employee lamented the loss of another downtown business, while another said she wasn’t surprised, given the reduced patronage downtown since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last month the Free Press reported that businesses along Graham Avenue were struggling to attract foot traffic after the road was closed to vehicle traffic to create a pedestrian corridor.

Blazing Chicken Shack at 392 Graham Ave. is still trying to get customers in the door. Owner Eric Saniuk said a bi-weekly farmer’s market held on Graham Avenue during the summer was pushed further down the street which means pedestrians aren’t anywhere near his business anymore.

“It would be nice that when the city has events that they at least promote the local businesses on Graham or downtown.”

Events hosted downtown also typically set up food trucks, which can lure away his would-be customers.

“It would be nice that when the city has events that they at least promote the local businesses on Graham or downtown,” Saniuk said.

On Aug. 11, the city and province announced a $1.4-million grant program to help spruce up businesses along and around Graham Avenue. The “Storefront Success” initiative aims to boost downtown’s appeal by giving money to small and medium-sized businesses for lighting, signs, windows, entrances, accessibility upgrades, landscaping and some interior improvements visible from the street.

Saniuk plans to apply for the funding, but says it will take a lot more than esthetic improvements to boost business.

“We need to get people down here,” he said. “The city and province need to make an effort to tell people to go to the downtown because there’s no one around otherwise.”

Safety concerns have also plagued the downtown. In March, eight unions formed a coalition calling on government officials to take swift and concrete action to better protect area employees and visitors in the city’s core.

Manitoba Hydro Place beefed up its security after an employee was assaulted in the foyer leaving work in January. The Crown corporation closed the building to the public for several weeks while it hired and trained institutional safety officers to monitor the campus.

Robb had previously told the Free Press Rudy’s was at odds with its landlord after Hydro restricted public access to its gallery through the Skywalk at 6 p.m. daily, which made it difficult for the eatery to attract people going to and from events at Canada Life Centre.

At the time, Hydro said the closure was due to an increasing number of incidents involving unco-operative and intoxicated people.

Coun. Cindy Gilroy has been calling for the city and province to address the underlying causes of safety concerns in the area, pointing to the mental health, addictions and homelessness crisis across the city.

Other officials insist the downtown core is doing just fine. When asked about the viability of Winnipeg’s downtown, business, mining, trade and job creation minister Jamie Moses pointed to the province’s storefront grant program and called Winnipeg’s core “a vibrant place.”

“So much tourism, business activities, people live in downtown,” Moses said at an unrelated press conference. “If your business is looking to relocate and set up an office or expand, there’s so many opportunities in downtown Winnipeg.”

“We need to get people down here.”

In its second quarter report, the Downtown Winnipeg BIZ reported that for the second consecutive quarter, the number of business openings matched closures, marking a pause in the net business losses experienced over the past five years. Three new businesses opened and three closed during the second quarter of 2026, the report said.

Downtown’s office vacancy rate was 17.5 per cent, down slightly from 17.6 per cent in the first quarter and 18.6 per cent in 2025’s fourth quarter.

Visitation downtown was 23 per cent lower in the second quarter of 2026 compared to the same quarter in 2025, which the BIZ attributed in part to the absence of the Winnipeg Jets’ playoff run.

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Olivia Billson, BIZ’s director of communications and public relations, said it’s sad to see Rudy’s vacate the downtown, but business ebbs and flows are normal and the vacancy presents an opportunity for another restaurant to take its place.

Billson pointed to programs and initiatives, as well as major projects like the redevelopments of Portage Place and the former Hudson’s Bay building as breathing new life into the area.

“Come 2028, 2029, downtown is going to look and feel very different,” she said.

— with files from Gabrielle Piche

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca

Nicole Buffie
Multimedia producer

Nicole Buffie is a reporter for the Free Press city desk. Born and bred in Winnipeg, Nicole graduated from Red River College’s Creative Communications program in 2020 and worked as a reporter throughout Manitoba before joining the Free Press newsroom as a multimedia producer in 2023. Read more about Nicole.

Every piece of reporting Nicole produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.