[Moncton] Retail Thread

[JasonL-Moncton]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

is greek food rare out therE? I work with a girl from cape breton/halifax and she has never had greek food before cause there is none there (according to her) - its hard to escape out here - i found it kinda weird that she didn't know what greek potatoes or souvlaki was

Greek is very lacking in Moncton as far as a full on 'greek restaurant'...other spots have greek dishes, but aren't specifically Greek.

Ela has 'fantastic' food, I've eaten there a couple of times in Bayer's Lake in Halifax and the food is awesome.

Would love to see Ela in Moncton!!

JL

PS> Went to Moxie's last night...restaurant has some strange decor (industrial art mixed with other things, very odd)...place was stupid busy even on a Wednesday...took 3+ hours to get in, seated, eat and leave. Had to wait an hour plus of that in the bar, felt very bad for the servers in the lounge who have to wear high heels/mini skirts and traverse the crowd with trays of drinks and stairs in very cramped quarters, while the servers in the restaurant wear pants and flats/sneakers. Saw servers in obvious pain, and could tell they were 'toughing it out'. It'll be a while before I go there again...

[MonctonRad]

Thanks for the honest review (and your sympathy for the servers)....

But was the food good?

[JasonL-Moncton]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Thanks for the honest review (and your sympathy for the servers)....

But was the food good?

The food was good...nothing I ate blew me away, the appetizers were mostly deep fried from the ones our group tried.

They said they put a pound of cheese on their nachos but I sure didn't see it.

I realize it's only their third week, but I was not blown away by the food (steak warm, not hot), will see the next time I go...several months from now (not waiting in that que again).

J

[SignalHillHiker]

I find Moxie's overpriced and, to me, the food is barely a step above, say, a Boston Pizza. It was certainly not a place I ever chose, though my Winnipeg friends seemed to love it. I preferred some of their other restaurants, like Santa Lucia.

But the decor is nice. The ones I've been to all had the exposed pipes and wiring on the ceiling, painted black. And the uniforms are cute, if too skimpy. Although, they're hilarious in the middle of a Winnipeg winter.

[MonctonRad]

Recopied from the St. John's Retail Thread:

Given Wing n’ It’s aviation iconography, saying the business is taking off comes across as a little corny.
But with the St. John’s-based chicken wing restaurant franchise about to open its fifth location — not even two years after its flagship location on Bates Hill downtown — it’s difficult to avoid.

Kim McFarlane, one of four partners — along with husband Glen McFarlane and friends Dave Deane and Sonia Ciccone — who opened the original spot in February 2011, said the idea grew out of their time in Ontario, where Deane and Ciccone operated a Wild Wing franchise in Innisfil for several years and befriended the McFarlanes.
“We moved from Ontario four years ago. We are from Newfoundland, and we were gone for 17 years,” said McFarlane.
“We always said this would really take off in Newfoundland. Any place you ever go to up there, there’s wings. There’s a whole bunch of places up there.”

Deane and Ciccone told the McFarlanes they’d be happy to put their restaurant experience to use in Newfoundland, so when Kim McFarlane was transferred to Newfoundland at her old job — the restaurant is now her full-time career — they decided to fill a wing void in the Newfoundland restaurant market.

Twenty-one months after opening, there are four Wing n’ Its in Newfoundland: in addition to downtown St. John’s, there’s one on Kenmount Road, one in Gander and one in Grand Falls-Windsor. A Bay Roberts location is due to open within two months, and there are outlets coming in Corner Brook and Clarenville in the next six months
.
The company is also fielding interest from potential franchisees in other provinces in Atlantic Canada and beyond.
“We have an inquiry right now that we’re working on for Moncton, one for Charlottetown, P.E.I. We have one for Goose Bay, we have one for Halifax. We have three inquiries out west.”

McFarlane says she expected the restaurant to do well — it’s the speed at which it has that surprised her.
“Of course in your heart and your soul, you just want it successful,” she said. “To the magnitude that it has taken off, uh-uh. We wanted it to. After a couple of months, people were starting to know that we were here. We felt the interest, we got inquiries. People ask us, ‘Is this a franchise that you bought from the mainland?’ No, this is something that we created, and we got consultation on how to do franchises, and lo and behold, here we are. It’s exciting to see, because it’s a unique restaurant.”

“Here we are” is a franchise that goes through, McFarlane estimates, 2,600 pounds of wings a day among all four locations, and is looking at $3.4 million to $3.6 million in sales this year, about $2 million more than last year. The restaurant draws on flavours the owners tried and experimented with, as well as Deane and Ciccone’s experience — especially since the McFarlanes have a construction company that builds the restaurants.

“As we move, we’ve found that each location, there’s a tweak, a little bit of a better tweak to our build,” said McFarlane. At this point, the biggest worry may be spreading too soon too quickly — but McFarlane shakes that off.....

This is their website:
http://wingnit.ca/

[stephan.richard]

Do we know what is going next to Ed's Sub at the Champlain Place Mall and do we have more updates on what else is going at Mapleton Park? I am curious to know..

[NBNYer]

Originally Posted by stephan.richard

Do we know what is going next to Ed's Sub at the Champlain Place Mall and do we have more updates on what else is going at Mapleton Park? I am curious to know..

It's likely a Terryaki Expericence. It was mentioned here once before and Champlain Place is already mentioned as a location on their website.

check out their website here.


Mapleton... who knows!

[MonctonRad]

It is indeed Teriyaki Experience. There is a building permit on the construction barrier that says so.

As for Mapleton - I would venture that beyond the 11-12 stores we already know about, that there won't be any further movement until next spring.

[MonctonRad]

Leon's is apparently buying The Brick.

I don't know what this means regarding the speculation that The Brick might be opening in Mapleton. Reportedly The Brick will continue to operate seperately from Leon's.

[stephan.richard]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

It is indeed Teriyaki Experience. There is a building permit on the construction barrier that says so.

As for Mapleton - I would venture that beyond the 11-12 stores we already know about, that there won't be any further movement until next spring.

I hope to see more development at that spot and it is great to see some movement there..

[JasonL-Moncton]

There is a big empty area at Mapleton (next to Bombay company) that is fenced off and un paved...is this for another building? Does anyone know?

Strange that this has been left with disturbed ground, unpaved, and fenced in...

[MonctonRad]

Yes, that is for Building "A". Presumably it won't be built until pre leasing agreements are signed.

It is odd in the sense that this leaves the Tag store off by itself in the far reaches of the development. I'm sure Tag would like to be closer to the action.

[Scraper2]

The Bed Bath and Beyond store at the Mapleton Power Center is tentatively scheduled for a soft opening on December 11th. They don't make official announcements on these dates just in case there are delays. It looks good for that date though. Any slippage should be minor.

Hiring sales staff now

Link to vendor support spreadsheet showing Moncton shipping date for November 29th (first worksheet).

Re. Tag - weird that there has been absolutely no visible progress on that store for over a month. It looks the same inside than it did weeks ago. Maybe they`re holding off until they see what happens with the US economy (e.g. the "fiscal cliff")?

[MonctonRad]

Welcome to the forums!

Thanks for the info regarding BB&B. This means they will be opening about the same time as PetSmart.

Regarding Tag, I heard some time ago that they weren't planning on opening until after the new year. The city recently issued a building permit for interior fit-up. I don't think the store is in any jeopardy....

[OUIR@random]

I don't think Tag is worried or is even thinking about the US economy, this is not BestBuy, BB&B or Petsmart with thousands of locations. Tag is a small, hum... very small Canadian based chain with 5 stores in total, the scale of this chain is so limited that I doubt that the status of the US economy is even relevant to them really. I think the problem is related to the chain itself or this particularly troubled commercial development. Opening a store after Christmas in the winter is a dud, to say the least.

[JasonL-Moncton]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Yes, that is for Building "A". Presumably it won't be built until pre leasing agreements are signed.

It is odd in the sense that this leaves the Tag store off by itself in the far reaches of the development. I'm sure Tag would like to be closer to the action.

Thanks MonctonRad...thought this was likely for another building but wasn't sure, just found it odd that this was left empty every time I drove by.

I wonder if this is where Henry's was supposed to go and why it's not coming now

[MonctonRad]

Further to the above, here is the 2010 site plan for the Mapleton Centre which was found and posted by mmmatt last year:



The construction has gone pretty much to plan, although the main building containing BB&B, PetSmart et al seems longer and larger than originally planned and the status of the Best Buy is debatable.

Building "A" (to contain three medium sized units) has not yet been constructed and you can see that on the initial plan, there are three pads for development between Moxie's and Golf Town. One of these pads is clearly for a restaurant and another has a drive-thru, so I am suspecting something like a Starbucks for that. I presume that these building will go up next year or when market conditions warrant....

EDIT:

I just looked at the image magnified, and the building that we have always referred to as "A" is in fact "Building E". Oh well.

[OUIR@random]

I don't believe that it will be a Starbucks, one just opened at the Lounsbury plaza 5 minutes away. It will be something else. I also think that initially it was supposed to be a Starbucks, but Starbucks was tired and annoyed with the whole Mapleton development ordeal and various delays, they then went to the new location on Mountain Road. God I hope it won't be a Tims, then again we are the Canadian capital of Tims...

[MonctonRad]

You may be right about the Starbucks, but I don't think the Mountain Road location necessarily precludes another outlet on Mapleton.

The Mapleton Centre is becoming a modestly upscale retail development, which would appeal to an upscale coffee vendor like Starbucks (or Timothy's or Second Cup for that matter). A Starbucks on Mapleton also would capture a different set of commuters into the city than the Mountain Rd outlet.

The Starbucks at Chapters and in Champlain Place are literally across the parking lot from one another. There is a similar situation in Saint John where there is a standalone Starbucks almost immediately adjacent to the Starbucks in the Indigo store.

[OUIR@random]

There is a big difference between a standalone location and a location within a larger store...

We should not count Starbucks locations within a Chapters or a Target as a "real" location, they are a product for sale within that store. People will buy a Starbucks while at Chapters, but they won't go out of their way to Chapters specifically to buy a Starbucks. I call those semi-hidden secondary locations. Just like NY Fries or Pretzelmaker at Empire Theatres or McDonald's at Walmart... just my 2 cents.
Now two standalone locations near each other that's another story.
I still believe that it's unlikely that Starbucks will go at Mapleton and that the Starbucks decamped to its Mountain Road location because of the troublesome Mapleton Centre. You snooze, you loose in this retail world. Time will tell.

NB. I think that Swiss Chalet was supposed to go within the Mapleton Centre and we know how that went...