A collection of businesses at Victoria Public Market is scrambling to find new space following the sudden termination of their lease.
Members of Coho Commissary, a shared commercial kitchen space in the market, have all been affected. The handful of restaurants, which rely on Coho Commissary as their operating space, were given one month’s notice their lease would be ending, leaving them without space to operate.
Other independently operating vendors – restaurants included – and the wider public market will remain unaffected by the kitchen's lease termination.
Chef Kiran Kolathodane of Cafe Malabar, one of the restaurants affected, said the decision was made despite his understanding that the minimum notice period was three months. Now, they will have to shift some focus away from a busy holiday season to finding a new place to operate.
“Unfortunately, the timing is not perfect, and we didn’t get enough time to find other options,” said Kolathodane.
The cafe's last day of service at the Victoria Public Market will be on Dec. 29, the business announced in an Instagram post.
Cafe Malabar, which was recently named one of the Top 5 Best New Restaurants in Canada by Air Canada’s enRoute magazine, was fortunate to have already planned a temporary closure in January to visit Kerala, India. However, they will now have to spend some of that time searching for new accommodations.
Kolathodane said they are sad to leave the market but had already planned to move into a new space soon.
“The market has been great to us. We started off here, and the community has helped, the market has helped us to grow so we can do what we love to do,” said Kolathodane.
“After a year and a bit, it’s also our time to move and find a brick-and-mortar restaurant.”
“We’re sad to say we will be closing until further notice,” Sushi Oota-ya announced in an Instagram post. Their last day in the market will be Dec. 28. While they are searching for a new base of operations, the timeline is unclear.
Editor's note, Jan. 2: clarification was added that other vendors operating independently in the market will not be affected and the market will remain open.
