After three years of operating out of the kitchen at Bannerman Brewing Co., Namjim owners Ian Brown and Gabe Roberge are moving on. But his attempts to find his own physical home for his Thai-inspired food have come to nothing.
“We realized that it wasn’t really us that couldn’t make it work. It was just this business model in this climate that didn’t work,” Brown said in an interview with The St. John’s Morning Show.
Brown founded Namjim after returning to St. John’s during the pandemic. He had fallen in love with Thai cuisine while living in Thailand, and when he moved home, he saw a gap in the market.
So he began creating Thai dishes, “but using the quintessential flora and fauna of Newfoundland,” he said.
Dishes such as lobster pad thai, curry with Newfoundland mussels or rice with mushrooms and local chanterelles.
Another popular St. John’s restaurant is closing due to a tough economy. Namjim has operated out of Bannerman Brewery for more than four years. But when they tried to find a place of their own, the numbers just didn’t add up.
For a year, Brown and Roberge toured the kitchens of St. John’s and beyond, making regular pop-ups at restaurants and bars. In November 2021, they moved full time to the kitchen at Bannerman Brewing Co. in downtown St. John’s.
However, in December, Brown and Roberge announced they were moving out of Bannerman, but Brown said it wasn’t because they were running out of money or because any relationship had soured.
“There’s been a lot of inflation in the last couple of years. Margins are shrinking. And, you know, I guess what made sense financially for Bannerman a couple of years ago isn’t necessarily true today,” he said.
They started looking for their own place, but Roberge said there are a variety of reasons why they couldn’t make things work, and most of them have to do with the cost of rent and building improvements.
“If the project goes a little over budget or a little over budget or you have a slow month, there’s no room for anything but absolute success every time,” Brown said.
7 restaurants close in 7 months
Brown and Roberge plan to continue catering, although they will not operate a brick-and-mortar restaurant, at least for now, after leaving Bannerman on Feb. 10. But Namjim is far from the first restaurant in downtown St. John’s to close. last months.
Gahan House, Pi, Bad Bones Ramen, Nook and Cannery, Brewdock and Chinched, all in or near downtown, have closed since August. Other downtown businesses have also closed, including Newfoundland Weavery and Pinpoint Ink.
AnnMarie Boudreau, executive director of the St. John Board of Trade, said they are concerned about the trend.
“The reality is that many restaurants and small businesses have not yet recovered from the pandemic,” he said.
He pointed to rising business costs, changes in consumer habits and reduced disposable income as some of the key challenges facing businesses.
“There’s been kind of a perfect storm the last few years,” he said.
St. John’s isn’t the only place where restaurants are struggling. According to Restaurants Canada, restaurant bankruptcies across the country increased 45 per cent in the first eight months of 2024, compared to the same period in 2023.
And Roberge believes the situation in St. John’s could get worse.
“I’m sure there will be more,” he said. “We’re entering the scariest part of the year: January, February.”
City focused on investment, security and residential development
Roberge believes the city could do more to revitalize downtown.
“They’re boarded up places, closed businesses, empty restaurants, and they’re all kind of sitting there ready to go, but intact,” he said.
He wants to see more support for downtown small businesses and a vacancy tax on properties that are vacant.
St. John’s Mayor Danny Breen agrees the downtown needs help.
“We really need to see an injection into the city centre. We need to see some of the properties that are there redeveloped because they are not in the condition necessary for a vibrant centre,” he said.
Breen said the city is not considering a tax on vacant homes, but believes they should be more aggressive in encouraging investment and development downtown, including more residential units.
“We need more people to live downtown now. And with that will come that level of traffic,” he said.
He said the city is also considering ways to respond to concerns about public safety and cleanliness downtown. The city has been conducting public consultation on a plan for the downtown neighborhood, which will be published later this year.
Download our free CBC news app to sign up to receive automatic alerts from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Register in our daily headline newsletter here. Click here to visit our home page.
