Quote:
Originally Posted by buzzg
The talk of a big chain going at P&M food court sprung up several years ago, so I'm curious to see if they've been working on this still for 3 years or if they got a new plan.
I know ever since the second tower beside 201 got scrapped, they've been wanting to expand the lobby into the plaza.
My best guess if they really are doing this is that a restaurant would go on the main floor (plaza), and kitchen/washrooms would be in the basement. This would allow for patio on the plaza as well. No major chain would be stupid enough to move into the basement there.
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Milestones seems highly interested in coming to the Winnipeg market. If the landlord at 201 Portage was willing to somehow broker a deal that benefited both them and Milestones that could easily be the banner at play, at least in my guess without inside knowledge.
In terms of operations, putting the kitchen in the basement would definitely have its challenges. First, the food court area doesn't have direct up/down access to the tower except via the escalators. This means any food would need to leave the kitchen, cross the public walkway and then go up to the dining room. There doesn't seem to be an easy way around that either.
Assuming those logistic could be sorted out, I would guess that if there was a main floor dining room it would roughly be where Starbucks is currently and wrap around the Portage and Main corner taking in the large room behind Starbucks. Not sure if it is still vacant but it was for a long time. That would open up the possibility of having a patio off the dining room directly on the P&M corner and separate from the existing plaza space.
In terms of Starbucks, it could potentially move to the basement level near the bottom of the escalators. The relocation could also address the somewhat funky and awkward layout of the current Starbucks location. Sort of funny I recall before Starbucks was there thinking that space would work but more the open room I had seen.