It’s a well-known truism of the restaurant business — in an industry fraught with delays, it’s dangerous to stick to a planned grand opening date.
Jennifer Keith and Luke Butterworth know this all too well. They’re the founding partners of the new Epic Food Market, which opened at the corner of Gateway Boulevard and Whyte Avenue a couple of weeks back. Taking up the second and third floor of Ivan Beljan’s development that’s constructed using Sea-Cans, Epic takes the food court to the next level. There are five distinct stations — Italian, Asian fusion, chop house, Mexican and French Canadians. You can mix and match, grab a drink from the bar and then sit at a table on either of the two floors.
It’s a big casual dining experience, but the space can be converted into a special-events space. Reservations are only taken for parties of 14 or more. Chefs’ tables and weddings have already been booked. Top 40 Under 40 alumna Rowena Cui of Planit Sound will be in charge of planning events for the two floors of space.
But, while the opening is a big deal, it came far later than Butterworth or Keith expected. In fact, I spoke with Keith in April of 2023, and the hope was Epic’s new location would be open before the end of that year. Then, there was hope for January. But, construction delays, financing and permitting issues all came into play. Keith and Butterworth gathered more than 20 new investors as new funding was raised.
“January was a potential time for opening,” says Butterworth. “But as we went on, everything got a little extended. We had to bring in more partners. But everyone became really aligned on this project. And, to be honest, as much as we had six months of delays, opening in the middle of January wouldn’t have been that much fun.”
Understand that neither Keith nor Butterworth are new at this. They are veterans of the restaurant scene, and owned Epic Food Hall that was located on 105th Street downtown. That concept saw independent chefs open kitchens in the space, with a central food court and bar. Butterworth and Keith moved Epic out of that downtown location last November to fully concentrate on the new Old Strathcona venture.
“We want to focus all of our resources on this bigger, badder location,” says Keith.
The Connected Kitchen Project, a non-profit organization that offers kitchen space to small food-business start-ups, is going to take that space on 105th Street.
Attracting investors wasn’t easy. Yes, there were family and friends involved, but more was needed.
“Not everybody, and especially in Canada, makes investments into a concept, especially a flagship project like the one we’re putting up,” says Butterworth. “If we owned the building, it would be totally different. If you’re investing in real estate, totally different. But we don’t have much risk capital in Canada. So, the first people who helped us, even downtown when we got started with all this, the majority of them came out of the States. It’s something I am pushing on and would like to see change; Canadians can’t just invest into real estate.”
The old Epic location had a number of different independent chefs operating under one roof. But while the new, south-side Epic has five different restaurant concepts, they’re all managed by executive chef Oliver Butterworth — Luke’s brother. He was previously the executive sous-chef at Nicklaus North golf club in Whistler, B.C.
“We changed a lot of the model from downtown. We learned everything. We had two years of seeing what works and what doesn’t. And when we got here, and we were modelling this, we knew how challenging it was to run a venue, to hold events, to have bigger activations, when you have four other groups clamouring on how they’re all going to be involved and having to sort out those relationships.”
“How we get involved with the other chefs who we used to work with is through our chef’s table,” says Keith. “We have a beautiful, multi-purpose space for private chefs to come in. We’ll give them opportunities to have pop-ups. The chefs we’re working with, they’re strongest at being creative. We want to give them an outlet for that.”
For most of us, the first experience in the space will be as casual diners. They are finding already that people come for a meal, go to the Fringe, then come back for snacks and drinks. I was able to have some poutine with smoked meat, alongside some fish tacos. That’s the flexibility the modern food court offers. If you and your friends can’t decide what they want to eat, you can be like Rush and choose not to decide — you still have made a choice.
Epic Market
CPR Irvine | 8115 Gateway Blvd #201, Edmonton | epicmarket.ca
