Last Grapes restaurant out of business

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This article was published 09/07/2010 (5545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THE last member of the once-thriving Grapes restaurant empire has been squashed, throwing about 35 unsuspecting employees out of work.

The Pembina Highway restaurant closed without warning earlier this week, leaving Winnipeg’s food and beverage landscape without a Grapes for the first time since 1980.

Kim Marie, the eatery’s bar manager and one of its bartenders, said word about a pending closure started to spread around the restaurant late Sunday night. When employees showed up for work on Monday, they were locked out.

"Not only was it closed, they wouldn’t even let us grab our personal items, like work shoes and phone chargers," he said.

More importantly, Marie said, their paycheques were inside too.

"Monday was payday," he said.

Patrick Munroe, the restaurant’s franchisor, said he’s going to make sure the owners of the Pembina store understand that handing out the employees’ cheques is their responsibility.

"I fully expect them to address their liabilities forthwith."

The squeezing out of the last of the Grapes bunch in Winnipeg hasn’t deterred Munroe. The one-time dishwasher at Grapes’ Kenaston store said he’s pursuing an opportunity to include Grapes restaurants in hotels and other businesses in Toronto and he hasn’t ruled out resurrecting the brand in Winnipeg at some point. He said he doesn’t believe stand-alone locations are the way to go, but setting up at already-established venues, such as hotels and golf courses, could work.

"I don’t think the core concept is an issue. You’ve really got to generate sales and we don’t have the horsepower to do it. I see Boston Pizza’s commercials on TV and think, ‘we couldn’t afford to produce a commercial, let alone show it,’" he said.

Scott Jocelyn, executive director of the Manitoba Restaurant and Foodservices Association, said it’s sad to see any restaurant close, but especially a name like Grapes that has been around for so long.

"Nobody is doing great business over last year. The bar has definitely been raised. If you look at Joey’s, Earls and Moxie’s, everybody is upping the ante. It’s very competitive, no question about that," he said.

Jocelyn said 500 Manitoba restaurants have turned off their ovens for good in the last decade and he’s hoping the trend doesn’t get worse.

"We don’t want to lose any more than 50 (in 2010)," he said.

Marie said it will be "impossible" for Grapes’s servers, bartenders, cooks, hostesses and busers to find a job at this time of year.

"Everybody has hired for the summer. The only time they’ll be hiring again is in mid-August when everybody is getting ready to go back to school."

geoff.kirbyson@freepress.mb.ca