Edgar Cafe Gatineau Quebec

Yesterday, I was visiting a client of mine in Gatineau and she told me about this tiny neighborhood café called Edgar.

I am guessing that the place is no bigger than 16 feet of frontage and maybe 40 feet deep so only about 640 sf.

The food is amazing, coffee great, and it’s a BIG success.

It has an outdoor patio which is also tiny—I am guessing maybe 16 feet by 15 feet and they may use their sideyard too for serving during milder weather…

It’s in a mixed-use (mainly residential) neighborhood at 60 Rue Bégin, Gatineau, QC J9A 1C8. Their website is https://chezedgar.ca/. It seats just 11 people…

This is what they say about the place on their site:

Edgar was a little man, and it’s also a small restaurant… Every morning, we prepare exceptional homemade pastries. During the week, a convivial lunch is served to you: soups, salads, and sandwiches which change according to the seasons (and the fantasies of the cooks). On weekends, Edgar is a must for brunch lovers, even if it is sometimes necessary to queue.

I took some pics:

Here’s a location map:

We should add more micro retail like this. It’s ridiculous that we are still building subdivisions of 3,000+ homes without a single store, office, pharmacy, doctor’s office, job or anything of note that you can actually walk to.

Frankly, I am amazed that CAVE people (citizens against virtually everything) didn’t come out with pitchforks to stop this use; instead, they walk there, meet friends, have some decent coffee and homemade food.

If I was an investor with a suitable building, I would rent to a restaurant like this for something around $1,750 a month + op costs, utilities, property taxes + GST and Quebec sales tax (QST); maybe I’d add a percentage rent too.

That way everyone wins–the restaurant entrepreneur, the neighborhood and the property owner.

And again, I’ll predict that adjacent land values will go up not down despite added traffic (most of it pedestrian).

How come?

Because millennials and others are starved for neighborhoods that actually deserve being called “communities.”

Prof Bruce

Bruce M Firestone, B Eng (civil), M Eng-Sci, PhD
Real Estate Investment and Business coach
ROYAL LePAGE Performance Realty broker
Ottawa Senators founder
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bruce.firestone@century21.ca
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