Thanks, Stella’s

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/04/2012 (4908 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There’s a hot new strip in town. It starts at the base of Sherbrook Street just after what some cheeky types call the Bum, Boob and Hoo-Ha Check-Up Clinics, across from the Misericordia Health Centre, and it keeps going with more than three blocks of restaurants, bars, patios, beauty and health services, clothing and specialty shops.

Sherbrook merchants agree the renaissance started about four years ago when Tore (rhymes with more) Sohlberg of the growing Stella’s dynasty took a chance. He bought the old McKnights drugstore and started creating a chic new Stella’s Café and Bakery in the middle of the strip, which looked a little down-at-the-heels at the time.

As soon as the next-door laundromat put up its For Sale sign, Sohlberg pounced on that property to make a bakery for his five Stella’s outlets and a patio strip in between. Now Stella’s Café and Bakery boasts a chichi restaurant — sunny windows by day, candles at night — and an aromatic bakery, with a behind-the-scenes commissary for Stella’s five outlets, served by 12 bakers and chefs. The bakery is open at 7 a.m. for early birds, until 11 p.m. for night owls. Sitting in the long outdoor patio, you can see stately old Westminster Church across the Maryland Street FoodFare parking lot.

Three years ago, Tore’s brother Tomas Sohlberg and sister-in-law Anneen du Plessis, who had started the first Stella’s on Osborne Street along with Tore and his wife, moved back to Winnipeg and opened Boon Burger Café vegan restaurant right across the street. The brothers had parted ways — partly over food styles — and Tomas set off for Quadra Island, B.C., to open his own restaurant. “But it was too rainy and a tourist town, with not enough people in the off-season,” he says ruefully. Give me 30 below and blue skies.” He and the family came back after a few years. “I told him they’d be back,” says his brother, chuckling. “Not that I would ever say ‘I told you so.’ “

“Winnipeg is a great place to have a business,” says Tomas, happily seated in his office behind the kitchen at Boon Burger. “People don’t realize how great it is,” he says, citing lower operating costs as a big plus. He and his wife and three kids live in Wolseley now and opened their new business in the former Common Ground location about two years ago. It quickly became popular for its varied menu of vegan burgers. “Burgers are the one thing vegans thought they could never have — and here we have them,” says Tomas, who’s in the process of building another restaurant on Bannatyne Avenue — a tunnel with windows, no less.

One success begets another. Getting closer to Sara Avenue, chef Yiho Park moved into the iconic old house called The Dutch Mill and opened Yiho Sushi. His fiancée, Debbie Mun, is now helping him in the business that caters to a younger, trendier crowd than most sushi establishments, and includes vegan-friendly and gluten-friendly items. It has a warm, casual, funky atmosphere, with a red pool table on the second level. Park, a former fine arts student, trained at Edohei, and worked at well-known restaurants such as Wasabi on Osborne Street and Amici. “After 10 years I was tired of working for other people, and I wanted to have my own style and meet the people — and control what the chefs are doing,” smiles the 36-year-old Korean-Canadian, who’s still the main chef much of the time.

Tore Sohlberg says he sees it this way: The Wolseley neighborhood was “bursting at the seams” and is moving across from its old border of Maryland to embrace Sherbrook as well. And young people are coming over to Sherbrook from the other direction. The downtown West Broadway neighborhood from Sherbrook to Osborne is filling up with students. Says Park: “I notice there are a lot more University of Winnipeg students moving to streets like Langside and Young.”

Older restaurants are getting into the act, too. Cousins Deli, affectionately known as Scuzzins by its loyal customers — has recently expanded and now seats 96. Never fear, my dears. Ya don’t change what ain’t broke. It’s still dark and intimate inside. Lively owner Yen Nguyen still rules the roost, coming in during the evening shift. And, a tarot reader still shows up to read your fortunes weekend afternoons.

Up the street at Sherbrook and Sara is Brave New World, which clothes the folk festival and student types with world clothing and jewelry in a shop that smells faintly of incense. Behind the counter, owner Leah McCormick stands gloriously pregnant in front of her painting/mural by Michel St. Hilaire of a busy Oriental street on a rainy day. Everybody mentions the increased foot traffic on the street. And McCormick notices a lot more vehicular traffic. “When I moved here 11 years ago, a big delivery truck could pull right up in front in the daytime — but not anymore.”

A little further north near Sara Avenue, Elements, a condo project by Sandhu Developments, is the talk of the neighbourhood, with a forest of pillars already rising into the sky. The elegant building with ensuite bathrooms, balconies, and elevators for the four floors will pull in people with money to spend on Sherbrook and is expected to be finished by the end of the year.

Sherbrook Street is also the home of exotic Charisma of India, known to have belly dancers on occasion, Pizza Bite, Straight to the Point Acupuncture, ZED used books, Remy Nail Design and many others.

It even has a new Subway restaurant. “Some people didn’t like it coming in, but I think a Subway kind of validates a neighbourhood,” smiles Tore Sohlberg affably. “My parents were restaurant people and they always said the more restaurants around you, the better. The pie just keeps getting bigger.”

Maureen Scurfield is a writer with a passion for poking around the fascinating neighborhoods of Winnipeg.