Aiming to be the boss of barbecue

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This article was published 04/04/2016 (3639 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Hank Hill would be in heaven.

What’s being billed as the city’s first store dedicated mainly to barbecues and barbecue-related products is scheduled to open this month in southwest Winnipeg.

Local entrepreneur and Wicker World owner Phil Squarie vows his new 10,000-square-foot Luxe Barbeque Company store at Unit 3, 1290 Kenaston Blvd., will feature the province’s largest selection of barbecues and barbecue accessories.

That includes about 15 different brands of barbecues, including Weber, Napoleon and Broil King, and more than 100 different models. “Ultimately, we want to have something for everybody,” Squarie explained during a recent interview. “That’s why we’re starting at the $199 price point and going all the way up to $15,000.”

He said he’s surprised someone hasn’t built a barbecue-dedicated store in Winnipeg before now.

“There is a barbecue store in every city in Canada, including Regina, Saskatchewan; and here we are with no barbecue-dedicated store. So we figured it was time to bring it to the market.”

Luxe Barbeque plans to sell things such as specialty spices, rubs and sauces — all year round. While not everyone barbecues during the winter, Squarie believes enough do to make it worthwhile to sell those items on a year-round basis.

“With all the new charcoal smokers and stuff like that, it seems to be going all year round now. People aren’t shying away from it… like they used to,” he said. “It (sales of barbecue-related products) definitely won’t be as strong in the off-season. We know that. But the demand is getting stronger, and we just want to be there to capitalize on it.”

While Luxe Barbeque’s primary focus will be on barbecue-related products, Squarie said it will also sell patio furniture during the spring and summer months and dining-room furniture during the fall and winter.

He noted his Wicker World store also sells barbecues, patio furniture and dining-room furniture. But it doesn’t have the room to carry a wide selection of dining-room sets, which won’t be the case with the Luxe Barbeque store.

“We think it’s the best opportunity to have… a very good offering of one type of item and be very good at that one thing.”

Squarie said Luxe Barbeque’s barbecues and accessories will sell for the same price as similar products sold in other local retail outlets such as Home Depot, Rona and Canadian Tire. Where it hopes to differentiate itself, aside from having a wider selection of barbecues, is on service. It plans to offer such things as free assembly and curbside delivery.

Flex-use building

The Luxe Barbeque store is tentatively scheduled to open for business April 15.

It will be one of four tenants in a former plastic-products factory that was recently converted into a multi-tenant, flex-use building that’s now suitable for retail, office or light-industrial uses.

The leasing agent for the 40,000-square-foot building — Chris Macsymic, associate vice-president in the Winnipeg office of Cushman & Wakefield — said two of the other units also have been rented out. A new brewery — he isn’t allowed to say which one — has taken one of them, and Best Care Dry Cleaners has leased the other.

He said Best Care has leased about 5,000 square feet.

He didn’t know when it plans to open the new store, which will be its second in the city. The other is at 998 Main St.

The vacant unit is about 7,000 square feet in size, and Macsymic said the building’s owner — a local syndicate of investors — isn’t particular about what type of business goes in there. It could be another retailer, or it could be an office or light-industrial tenant.

He said the syndicate acquired the former Westland Plastics factory last year, after Westland was purchased by Polywest Ltd. Although the new owners had the option of leaving it as factory space, they felt the location made it better suited for a variety of commercial uses.

“The southwest is just very popular in general. It’s a highly sought-after area for retail, industrial — everything.”

Squarie said he chose that location because the building faces onto Kenaston and is only about half a kilometre away from the IKEA store and the new factory outlet mall that will be opening next year at the corner of Kenaston and Sterling Lyon Parkway.

“I think it (the fashion outlet mall) is going to draw a ton of traffic to that part of the city,” he said.

Hank Hill, for the uninitiated, is the main character of the long-running Fox animated series, King of the Hill.

Hill was the assistant manager of Strickland Propane, where he sold propane and propane accessories.

Know of any newsworthy or interesting trends or developments in the local office, retail or industrial real estate sectors? Let real estate reporter Murray McNeill know at the email address below, or at 204-697-7254.

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca