Jets shoot, businesses score: Restaurants, shops booming with playoff fever hitting downtown
Winnipeg diner busiest in 9 years, sports store says business up 200%
As a small fish in a big pond, Bruce Smedts relies on word of mouth to attract customers into his retro diner in downtown Winnipeg.
Lately, it would seem a lot of people have been talking about the family-run business.
Last Friday was the busiest day in the White Star Diner's nine years in business, thanks in no small part to Winnipeg Jets fans, Smedts says.
"I've never had sales like that before," he said Thursday.
Smedts isn't the only business owner benefitting from the team's success.
Jets fans flooded the downtown during the first round of the NHL playoffs, as Winnipeg faced off against the Minnesota Wild. That series, which the Jets took 4-1, included outdoor street parties for the three home games, which organizers estimate were attended by 35,000 people.
The parties cost about $394,000, Economic Development Winnipeg said Thursday.
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More parties are planned for the second round of the playoffs, as the Jets face the Nashville Predators, including whiteout viewing parties at Bell MTS Place for away games during the series.
Smedts expects to see fans back for Round 2. He said some have even started a superstition which involves going to his Kennedy Street diner to have a burger and drink before going to a game.
Business is also booming across the street from the diner, at Uptown Sports inside Portage Place Shopping Centre.
"It's been crazy. Whiteout crazy," said owner Rick Lefort.
'Our second Christmas'
Lefort said sales are up in his store about 200 per cent over where they'd normally be, and everything in his store that's Jets related is a hot item right now.
"Everything is flying off the shelves, so anything white," he said.
"This is certainly our second Christmas. For us, basically, it's December again."
Because of the Jets craze downtown, some businesses — like coffee shop Thom Bargen, which opened two years ago on Kennedy — are staying open later during whiteout parties.
"It was great. You just saw so many more people downtown, and just with the door open, people just wandering in on their way there," said Alice Zador, a manager at the coffee shop.
And it's not just restaurants and retail businesses in the downtown core that have been bustling.
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Many fans are parking on the outskirts of downtown at The Forks or in St. Boniface, and walking to see games or attend the whiteout parties, said Stefano Grande, the CEO of the Downtown Winnipeg BIZ.
"Clearly when you have 20,000 people on a street party in the core of our downtown, particularly the crowd that is sports-related, the crowd will come early, they will be entertained, they will go to the restaurants," he said.
"That's the whole rationale of our community pursuing an entertainment complex in our downtown. It just brings that energy to the core of our city and we're seeing that wisdom really paying off in spades this month."
Game 1 of the Jets-Predators series begins Friday night at 7 p.m. CT. The game at Nashville's Bridgestone Arena will be televised on CBC.
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