Kids’ bistro at city hall heats up with $1M grant

JAN. 18, 1996

The Kids In The Hall Bistro, a restaurant to be run by street kids at City Hall, took a step closer to becoming a reality with the federal government pledging $1 million in funding.

Martin Garber-Conrad, executive director of the Edmonton City Centre Church Corp. one of the social agencies behind the plan, said funds would be doled out over three years to help the program provide work experience and job training to disadvantaged youth.

The cafeteria was expected to be up and running April 1.

Garber-Conrad said he would be celebrating if Mayor Bill Smith wasn’t determined to scuttle the pan. He tried to change the mayor’s mind in December.

“I told him I thought this would be a good idea, and he indicated he had other plans for City Hall.”

Smith was holding fast to his vision of transforming sleepy City Hall into a hub of economic development. He wanted the ground floor of the southwest wing used for business-promotion groups.

“To have a restaurant in here when we don’t have any people seems to be swimming upstream,” Smith said. “I’m not against the program, I just think it would make sense to be somewhere else.”

Darryl Timmerman, operations officer for the metro office of Human Resources Canada, the federal agency which gave City Centre Church Corp., said the restaurant was only one component. Over a three-year period, the program, called Kids In The Hall, would take 180 to 200 youth off the street and try to turn their lives around, he said.

“This program is for young people with problems and it also includes academic upgrading, counselling, work training and job experience.”

The Kids In The Hall project was approved by members of the previous city council’s utility and public works committee.

Approval was contingent on Garber-Conrad raising the necessary funding.

City manager Richard Picherack said the committee may have overstepped itself in approving capital improvements at City Hall.

“The plan may have to go before council.”

Some new council members who weren’t enthusiastic about Kids In The Hall, were horrified by the size of the federal grant.

“Good God, good God,” said Coun. Rose Rosenberger on hearing about the $1 million.

She thought a big chunk of taxpayers’ dollars was being used to set up a restaurant that would end up competing with existing, taxpaying restaurants.

But Bob Mercer, executive director of the Downtown Business Association, supported the Kids In The Hall.

“You just can’t put half a million dollars into half a dozen restaurants and get the same result.”

Twenty years later, the Kids In The Hall Bistro is still going strong.