‘Just wasn’t enough business’: East Exchange grocer Ashdown Market closes doors By: Malak Abas Posted: 6:12 PM CST Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026

The East Exchange District’s only independent grocer has closed up shop, as rising crime and a declining customer base were too much to bear, its owners say.

Ashdown Market, which began as a cannabis shop in 2022 but expanded into selling fresh produce a year later, shut its doors on Sunday. On Thursday, the space was mostly cleaned out; its wooden shelves once filled with fruits and vegetables left empty.

Co-owner Josh Giesbrecht said crime in the area had a direct impact on how many people were in the neighbourhood and visiting the store.

“Longish story short: there just wasn’t enough business,” Giesbrecht told the Free Press in an interview at the shop at 171 Bannatyne Ave. on Thursday.

“And that’s a problem throughout downtown Winnipeg, unfortunately, where we’ve seen a lot of closures, a lot of buildings burned down, crime on the rise … which affects people’s view of downtown being safe. We just saw a steady decline of people showing up to the neighbourhood.”

Giesbrecht and co-owner Marleen Mecas were leasing the space, which also held a liquor licence. Mecas and several local comedians managed Luci’s Comedy Club, which opened last year and operated out of the back of the store.

Mecas said Luci’s will host pop-up stand-up shows for the foreseeable future while she finds a new permanent location.

Giesbrecht is moving to Ottawa, where he is returning to the career in politics he started before becoming an entrepreneur in Winnipeg.

“A big thing for us that we want to make sure that people know is that we’re thankful. We don’t view this as a bad thing,” he said. “We’re thankful we got the chance. Of course, we wish it went on longer, but we’re thankful for all the customers that we had.”

Mecas called Luci’s the fulfillment of a lifelong dream that brought in big-name celebrities in its short first iteration. “I would have never imagined this when I was that little girl watching SNL,” she said.

Giesbrecht, who had previously run Uncle Sam’s Cannabis in Winnipeg, said he believed downtown operates in ebbs and flows — while it may be difficult to run a business now, in a few years, safety may improve and more people will make the area home.

He hopes someone else opens a grocery store in the neighbourhood someday.

“I think the tide has to turn. And I think a part of that is that more people in general have to be actually living here in downtown Winnipeg … That’ll take time, but I think it will happen,” he said.

“And hopefully someone takes a crack at it.”

Data presented by the Exchange District Business Improvement Zone at its annual general meeting in November found calls for Exchange Community Safety Patrol workers in 2025 were 10 times higher than the number logged in 2018-19.

Ashdown Market felt like the first equivalent of the bodegas made famous in New York City that have made their way to bigger Canadian centres, said Exchange District BIZ executive director David Pensato.

“They kind of were ahead of the curve,” he said. “When we look at the population density requirements for a standard grocery store, the Exchange District isn’t quite there yet.”

There are other options downtown for fruits and vegetables, including the Giant Tiger on Donald Street and Asian grocers Sun Wah on King Street and Young’s Trading on William Avenue.

“It is pretty central. There is access fairly nearby. If you think about other neighbourhoods in the city, it’s not that different,” Pensato said.

“I think that the thing that a neighbourhood grocery store does, though, is that it reinforces that image of a residential neighbourhood. Once you see that, then you see a bit of a tipping point, because people start to imagine themselves living in that kind of a lifestyle.”

The number of ground-floor businesses in the Exchange has grown steadily, Pensato said. What’s more concerning to him is the impacts of office vacancies beginning to be felt in the neighbourhood and their potential to “short-circuit” that growth.

“That ecosystem, the office businesses and the increasing residential, all tie together with the ground-floor commercial. They all kind of reinforce each other,” he said. “So, right now we’re really starting to watch what’s happening at that office level.”

Exchange District resident Vinnie Heidemann was left disappointed Thursday afternoon, when he stopped by Ashdown Market only to learn it had closed.

“I think it had the best (slushies) in town, in the area, and I think it was very convenient because he also sold food,” Heidemann said.

Heidemann called the owners’ reasoning a “fair point” and said he dealt with near-weekly car break-ins before choosing to leave his vehicle unlocked overnight. He’s planning to move to a different neighbourhood.

“I think it sucks, because it seems like lots of business is closing down, and you see a lot of fires around here,” Heidemann said. “I just don’t like the direction that this area is going to.”

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca