Openings

• Toronto-based Rosie’s Burgers (serving up smashburgers and milkshakes) is opening up a location in Edmonton in the Brewery District, #108, 11928 104 Avenue NW. It will be their second in Alberta, joining a branch already open in Calgary.
• Brewco Craft Kitchen and Brewery is opening soon at West Edmonton Mall. As the name suggests, it will serve in-house brewed beer.
• Firema promises Edmonton’s “first charcoal shawarma experience”, offering Jordanian flavour. The food truck is parked at 13530 Fort Road NW.
• New Freeze Land is a chain founded in India in 1983, serves grilled sandwiches, cold coffee, and shakes. They opened their first Edmonton location last week at 270 91 Street SW.
• Sangam Social is a new Indian restaurant opening soon in Sherwood Park, at 975 Broadmoor Blvd.
• Ontario-based chain Daal Roti is opening up an Edmonton location at 3645 Gateway Blvd NW.
• Walker Lake Meat Shop is opening a second location, this time on the north side.
• The fifth Chick-Fil-A in the Edmonton region is opening soon in St. Albert, 815 St. Albert Trail, Unit #5A.

Closures

• The Den, the Mercer Warehouse location opened by The Growlery, closed on May 16: “The downtown location has become unsustainable, and we need to focus on the brewery as a whole.” The Den was one of three recipients of the Downtown Retail Project grant in 2023. With its closure, along with Good Goods back in September 2024, Obj3cts is now the only business supported by the grant that remains open.

Upcoming Events

• UFest, Western Canada’s largest Ukrainian Festival, runs May 29-30 in Borden Park. Expect food, entertainment, and vendors.
• Edmonton International BeerFest will be taking place in Churchill Square June 4-9.

Local News

• Kind Ice Cream’s sister location Bestie Ice Cream in Crestwood opened for the season on May 13.
• YEG Exotic, the city’s exotic pop shop, moved to 15003 118 Avenue NW.
• Woodshed Burgers is hosting a gluten-free day on May 20, and The Lingnan is offering a gluten-friendly Chinese buffet on May 28. It’s also worth mentioning that Siu Yeh’s fryers are gluten-free.
• Canadian band The Arkells were in town over the weekend, and enjoyed food at Rosewood during their stop. They shared a glowing post about Rosewood’s food and humanity.
• New Asian Village is celebrating 40 years in business, and was one of the first Indian restaurants that opened in Edmonton. The three daughters of founder Harmeet Kapur each own one of the three current locations.
• Erika Eats Everything reviewed The Colombian.
• Edify rounds up where some food trucks are parked early on this season.
• Explore Edmonton’s Eat Play Laugh pass includes 15 Taste of Edmonton tickets, a 10-day pass to K-Days, and one ticket to the Great Outdoors Comedy Festival. The cost is $59.

Beyond Edmonton

• Dunkin’ Donuts is returning to Canada in late 2026 or early 2027. It officially left the Canadian market in 2018.

What I Ate

• Another work trip down to Calgary meant another fantastic dinner with colleagues, this time at Bridgette Bar. The standouts were the beef ribs with whey polenta and the maple BBQ Alberta rainbow trout.

Beef ribs with whey polenta from Bridgette Bar

• Instead of banh mi for the bus ride home, I was craving a poke bowl, so picked one up at Hula Poke. The tuna portion was pretty good, especially compared with the one from Splash Poke I had a few weeks back.

Ponzu from Hula Poke

• I also stopped in Hey Sugar in Bankers Hall, the first business I’ve encountered close to home where in store, you order and pay on a screen instead of interacting with a staff. Their cupcakes were okay.

Cupcakes from Hey Sugar

• The weather cooperated enough on Monday so we could plant our community garden plot! In addition to our stalwart Sundog Organic tomatoes, the kids picked out corn and zucchini to plant, which we’ve not yet tried in our plot. We will see how it goes.

Here’s to another garden season!

Openings

• The folks behind Great North Cookie Co. in Spruce Grove are opening up an English-inspired sandwich shop called The Ploughman’s Table in that same town. It opens on May 13.
• Made in Palestine, a café and culture shop, is now open at 15166 127 Street NW.
• The Gardens is opening a second location, at 11520 100 Avenue NW (most recently a location of El Taco Loco).
• Leduc is getting their own Montreal-inspired restaurant (hello, Chartier), called Saint Laurent. It will open this fall.
• The Ivy, Sherwood Park’s first tea house, is now open at 110, 200 Festival Lane.
• Lotus Lao & Thai Cuisine hosted their grand opening last week at 309 McLeod Avenue in Spruce Grove.
• Abhinandan Restaurant, serving Indian, Chinese, and Italian food, is now open at 3815 34 Street NW. 
• Spade’s Kitchen & Bar has moved into the revolving door space at 10401 82 Avenue NW.
• ID Donair and Fast Food has opened in the space formerly occupied by Carne Asada downtown, at 10508 Jasper Avenue NW.
• Mr. Halal Burger has opened its fourth location in Edmonton, this time in the south, at 6944 Ellerslie Road SW.

Upcoming Events

• The Downtown Farmers’ Market returns (much to Emily’s delight) this weekend, May 16, and runs until October 10. The duration now mirrors the operation of the previous 104 Street Market.
• Food Justice YEG is hosting a full-day summit on June 10 to mark the end of the Food Security and Food Justice Edmonton project. It is free to attend.
• Taste of Edmonton returns July 16-26. The menus are available to peruse now, with 96 new items. Discounted advance tickets are on sale until July 14.

Local News

• Ramneek Singh, who completed his butter chicken odyssey last year, has started a donair odyssey. The first chapter features Mike’s Donair.
• Those missing the apple fritters from Hazeldean Bakery should rejoice – they can still be found at local markets in Terwillegar and Leduc.
• From Edify – a profile about Onoway’s Prairie Bears Cider, a visit to Bread + Butter Bakery, and a round-up of play cafes.
• CBC created a video profile about enduring restaurant Barb & Ernie’s.
• Leduc Produce Market is expanding into two new retail bays, to open July 1.

Beyond Edmonton

• Shake Shack opened its first Alberta location in Calgary on May 11. It has, not surprisingly, drawn huge lines.

What I Ate

• My Mum requested dinner at Seven Kitchens for Mother’s Day. It was remarkably busier compared to the last time we visited back in March, which is good news, given the construction out front might be worse. It’s hard to think of a restaurant with a better deal than their dinner for four: 5 generously sized dishes (plus spring rolls) for $67.95. We still love the special fried rice and sweet and sour pork., but the beef with mixed vegetables was also great.

Portions galore at Seven Kitchens

• After a date at the Royal Alberta Museum, we walked over to King Noodle House to satisfy my Mother’s Day craving for bun bo hue.

My kids love all the noodles

Openings

• Congratulations to Brio Bakery who has opened its second location. Find it in the French Quarter, 9614 82 Avenue NW.
• Dirty soda shop Sip Soda Co. opened its second location in the Edmonton region, this time in St. Albert (#110, 840 St. Albert Trail).
• Always Coffee will open its second location in Windermere on May 5, at 6070 Andrews Way SW.
• North American chain Punjabi Chaap Corner has opened a location in Edmonton at 1075 Parsons Road SW. All dishes are made with plant-based protein.
• Indian bakery Shree is opening a second location downtown at Edmonton City Centre Mall (10025 102A Avenue NW).
• Dickey’s Barbecue Pit will open its fourth location in the Edmonton area at 5250 Ellerslie Road SW.

Closures

• Transit Smokehouse has been forthcoming about how challenging it has been to stay afloat. They closed that location on May 3, but will be opening at 10732 Whyte Avenue NW soon.
• Canadian chain Basil Box is shutting down all its locations, including its lone Edmonton shop in Edmonton City Centre Mall. Their final day is May 14.

Upcoming Events

• The Old Red Barn’s farm dinners return in June and run to September on select Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.
• Save the date for the return of Burger Fest in Downtown Edmonton, running July 2-11.

Local News

• It’s great to see patios open up all over the city, including PlayWright’s (they had to forego patio season last year due to the parkade/street construction)!
• Seasonal restaurants such as smash burger purveyor Shortees at the Rundle Park Golf Course, has also opened for the summer.
• Canada’s 100 Best list was released, and while no Edmonton restaurant made the cut on the restaurant side, Next of Kin landed at #46 on the Best Bars list. Baijiu and Little Hong Kong were recognized with a Best Patio Award, and the Journal interviewed the folks behind that year-round patio.
• On the heels of Woodwork re-opening for lunch earlier this year, The Common has done so too, from Wednesday to Friday. Great to see more lunches coming online downtown!
• The owners of Coast Lunch Box have sold the food truck to focus on Toast Culture and Birch and Bear Pizza.
• Sharon checked out BB2’s all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ.
• Erika checked out CQ Noodle (thanks also for the shout-out of Edmonton Food Faves We Crave!).
• Edify rounds up five sandwiches to try in Edmonton.

What I Ate

• The season of al fresco dining has begun! Mack picked up some Splash Poke for us to enjoy at our local park on Friday. It’s likely there will be many a picnic here with the kids this summer.

Splash Poke in the park

• I met up with a friend at Mr. Bun for lunch on the weekend. It might be a good candidate to satisfy my dumpling and noodle cravings given the unexpected closure of BaoBao (RIP). The xiaolong bao were good, but my favourite of the dishes we tried were the chili oil wontons. I’ll be back.

Chili oil wontons

• Saturday was a spectacular weather day so we took advantage. It felt like half of Edmonton had the same idea to visit the newly re-opened Hawrelak Park that day! After enjoying our Van Loc subs, we walked past Lift Me Up On the Lake to check it out – the line was easily 20 deep for both take-out and separately for indoor seating. It definitely feels like Edmontonians are ready to embrace summer.

Van Loc in the park

• We ended the day with some ice cream from Made by Marcus. That lemon curd blueberry really is something.

Made by Marcus