Can this Pantry be saved?
Nov. 27th, 2013 02:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blogcutterThe Pantry, a vegetarian restaurant located within the Glebe Community Centre, will be closing its doors for good in June 2014. Apparently it had been allowed to pay substantially below-market rents for years but now the Centre has said "Enough is enough" and wants to reappropriate the space for other purposes.
And that's a shame. Because the Pantry was a destination location unlike, say, yoga classes or children's art classes which, while certainly valid uses of a community centre space, may be found in just about every community, often within easy walking distance of the participants' homes.
I was frankly very disappointed in the lacklustre response of the local councillor, David Chernushenko, whom I usually find to be fairly in tune with my views on things. After all, today's Glebites are to a great extent a well-heeled, highly educated bunch, who pay a small fortune in property taxes. The Glebe is certainly not the ghetto for Carleton University students that it might have been in the 1960s and 70s. Don't Glebe residents deserve something in return for their tax dollars, other than a sole-sourced big-box shopping centre at Lansdowne Park that no one except the developers really seems to want? There were a few tepid murmurings along the fact that maybe The Pantry could stay open if, say, some of the food preparation was done off-site and the meals brought in. Why, for heaven's sake? Most community-oriented buildings - churches, community centres, child care centres - have their own kitchens! And to a great extent, it's the feeling of sitting among friends in someone's sprawling farmhouse kitchen that gives the Pantry a lot of its charm. The pine tables and furniture, the make-do, mismatched tableware, the shelves of cookbooks and children's books and toys, the friendly personalised service you get from the long-time cooks and servers.
It also must be stressed that the hours of the Pantry are, and have always been, quite limited. It is open from noon to 3 PM, Monday through Friday, and only during the school year (i.e. from September through June and excluding the Christmas and March breaks and other school holidays). So except for those fifteen hours a week plus maybe another ten for food preparation and clean-up, the space is available for other purposes and would, I think, be quite suitable for other functions. What about a teen drop-in and coffee house on Friday and Saturday evenings? What about a get-together venue for stay-at-home parents with small children? Or activities for seniors? Family board-game nights, anyone?
The Pantry has always been supportive of local and community activities and people. When we last went there a couple of weeks ago, they were showcasing and offering for sale two items: Gwendolyn Bests's "The Cats of Parliament Hill" calendar; and a CD called "At the Doors of Guapalo" with mezzo-soprano Donna Klimoska and Wolfgang Lendle on guitar.
The Glebe as a whole has seemed to be in a bit of a slump lately. That's a pity, because it has some quite unique independent businesses - Britton's Smoke Shop with its wide variety of international magazines, which every weekend features Linda Wiken's Prime Crime Bookshelf; The Papery; a shop devoted to all things Cat (whose name escapes me at the moment); Glebetrotters (a shoe store with a wide selection of upscale but very comfortable footwear); The Emporium (kitcheny stuff); and much more. This year, in an effort to encourage holiday shopping, Glebe merchants are offering a promotion - they stamp your "ballot" every time you spend $20 in their store; when you have enough stamps on your ballot, you can enter it in their draw for a $10,000 "Glebe Spree". And then pick up a new ballot and start again - until December 31. For details, see http://glebespree.ca
But looking out the window today, it certainly doesn't look as if it'll be a green Christmas in any sense!
And that's a shame. Because the Pantry was a destination location unlike, say, yoga classes or children's art classes which, while certainly valid uses of a community centre space, may be found in just about every community, often within easy walking distance of the participants' homes.
I was frankly very disappointed in the lacklustre response of the local councillor, David Chernushenko, whom I usually find to be fairly in tune with my views on things. After all, today's Glebites are to a great extent a well-heeled, highly educated bunch, who pay a small fortune in property taxes. The Glebe is certainly not the ghetto for Carleton University students that it might have been in the 1960s and 70s. Don't Glebe residents deserve something in return for their tax dollars, other than a sole-sourced big-box shopping centre at Lansdowne Park that no one except the developers really seems to want? There were a few tepid murmurings along the fact that maybe The Pantry could stay open if, say, some of the food preparation was done off-site and the meals brought in. Why, for heaven's sake? Most community-oriented buildings - churches, community centres, child care centres - have their own kitchens! And to a great extent, it's the feeling of sitting among friends in someone's sprawling farmhouse kitchen that gives the Pantry a lot of its charm. The pine tables and furniture, the make-do, mismatched tableware, the shelves of cookbooks and children's books and toys, the friendly personalised service you get from the long-time cooks and servers.
It also must be stressed that the hours of the Pantry are, and have always been, quite limited. It is open from noon to 3 PM, Monday through Friday, and only during the school year (i.e. from September through June and excluding the Christmas and March breaks and other school holidays). So except for those fifteen hours a week plus maybe another ten for food preparation and clean-up, the space is available for other purposes and would, I think, be quite suitable for other functions. What about a teen drop-in and coffee house on Friday and Saturday evenings? What about a get-together venue for stay-at-home parents with small children? Or activities for seniors? Family board-game nights, anyone?
The Pantry has always been supportive of local and community activities and people. When we last went there a couple of weeks ago, they were showcasing and offering for sale two items: Gwendolyn Bests's "The Cats of Parliament Hill" calendar; and a CD called "At the Doors of Guapalo" with mezzo-soprano Donna Klimoska and Wolfgang Lendle on guitar.
The Glebe as a whole has seemed to be in a bit of a slump lately. That's a pity, because it has some quite unique independent businesses - Britton's Smoke Shop with its wide variety of international magazines, which every weekend features Linda Wiken's Prime Crime Bookshelf; The Papery; a shop devoted to all things Cat (whose name escapes me at the moment); Glebetrotters (a shoe store with a wide selection of upscale but very comfortable footwear); The Emporium (kitcheny stuff); and much more. This year, in an effort to encourage holiday shopping, Glebe merchants are offering a promotion - they stamp your "ballot" every time you spend $20 in their store; when you have enough stamps on your ballot, you can enter it in their draw for a $10,000 "Glebe Spree". And then pick up a new ballot and start again - until December 31. For details, see http://glebespree.ca
But looking out the window today, it certainly doesn't look as if it'll be a green Christmas in any sense!
