U.S. liquor to stay in storage at city’s Wow restaurants

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This article was published 08/03/2025 (191 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THE HEAD of Wow Hospitality says he misspoke Thursday, amid rapidly changing tariff news, meaning 529 Wellington and its sister restaurants will not put U.S. liquor back on their menus just yet.

Roughly $500,000 worth of American alcohol is boxed up. The move began in protest as U.S. President Donald Trump slapped tariffs on Canadian imports Tuesday.

Doug Stephen, president of Wow Hospitality, spoke to the Free Press Thursday shortly after word broke that the U.S. would pause 25 per cent tariffs on some Canadian imports.

He hadn’t yet learned that Manitoba had decided to continue to keep American liquor off Manitoba Liquor Mart shelves.

Premier Wab Kinew signed an order to remove such drinks from the Crown corporation’s stores Tuesday; the order is continuing until all tariff threats are dropped, the premier confirmed Thursday.

“As it stands today, we haven’t heard yet that they’ve lifted that embargo,” Stephen said Friday afternoon. “So we haven’t gone ahead and restocked our shelves.”

Wow Hospitality will wait for the province to make the first move, Stephen said.

Wow Hospitality is the umbrella company for six restaurants including 529 Wellington and Peasant Cookery. Forty per cent of the wine on 529 Wellington’s usual drinks menu is sourced from the United States.

Pulling the liquor is “major” for the business, Stephen said this week. He’d like interprovincial trade barriers to be removed to ease access to alcohol made in other provinces.

“If nothing else, what this move by Donald Trump has done is it’s galvanized us as a country,” Stephen said.

“Whenever possible, we want to protect Canadian jobs, we want to protect the Canadian economy and, of course, we’re hoping (this trade war) doesn’t drag on.”

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com