1886 Buffalo Cafe Launches Letter-Writing Campaign to Stop Evictions

The owner of a Calgary cafe has launched a letter-writing campaign aimed at convincing city council to reverse a decision that will result in the restaurant’s eviction from a historic building in Eau Claire.

The city, however, says its decision is irreversible – and has been a long time in the making.

The 1886 Buffalo Cafe has been in the historic Eau Claire Lumber Company building for about 40 years.

Next month, however, the city will not renew its lease, in order to undertake long-awaited renovation work.

City councilors said the cafe’s owners were told in 2017 that the city would have to move the building to do major flood work and as part of ongoing redevelopment in Eau Claire.

But owner Joanna McLeod told CBC News she felt like the city misled her with confusing communications that made her believe they could stay in the building longer.

This prompted him to launch a letter-writing campaign and petition in hopes of saving the cafe.

“I just think there’s a lot of information missing about the city,” she said.

“We’ve been the best tenants for 40 years…and we’d really like to stay in this building.”

“Insurance Timeline”

McLeod said they are in negotiations with the city to renew its lease in 2018.

At the time, they had a month-to-month lease, she said, because of planned developments in Eau Claire.

The cafe’s owners were told that revitalizing the area would bring the cafe closer to the river and in the same building.

In February 2020, McLeod said, the city offered him a five-year lease that was not signed after a real estate agent told him the language was not typical of a commercial lease, and that the cafe owners wanted a few details changed before committing.

According to the city, the lease was terminated in November 2020, after the tenant failed to sign and the city received confirmation of $8.6 million in funding from the province to continue the reconstruction project of Eau Claire Plaza.

But McLeod said there are documents and emails that show a “timeline of assurances that were given to us by the city and kind of guide us down the path to safety with them.”

The landlords were blindsided, she said, when a rental agent finally advised them that they had 90 days to vacate the premises.

And thinking they were going to stay in the building, McLeod said they invested money in the place.

“If we had known that there was a possibility that we would not be able to continue our operations from this building … we would have chosen to do business a little differently,” McLeod said.

Development plans not a secret, says advisor

If the decision is not overturned by the city, McLeod said, she hopes they will be compensated for business decisions they made “in bad faith.”

However, Coun. Druh Farrell told CBC that while she sympathizes with the owners, they have known for a very long time that these developments were underway.

“It’s not a secret, and the information has been shared with the council, and we’ve been working on this for several years,” said Farrell, who represents Ward 7.

Significant changes are coming to the area, including essential flood works, which will be very disruptive – but there is a commitment to restoring the building and placing it in a new designated location, Farrell said.

It will be available again in 2023.

“It will not be possible to reverse this decision,” Farrell said.

McLeod nevertheless hopes the city will move.

“We’re imploring them to change their minds. This is not just a building that we care about, it’s a building that’s close to a lot of hearts,” McLeod said. “It’s simply an iconic piece of Calgary.”