What is your favourite place in Ottawa that doesn’t exist anymore? I’ve spent most of my formative years outside of Ontario, but as a frequent visitor and now resident Ottawa always struck me as a place that doesn’t really value the longevity of cool stuff. Maybe it’s just ignorance of the economic forces involved, but any time I was shown something cool here I always left with the sense that it wouldn’t be there next time.
For me, I divide this into places I’ve been and places I didn’t get to go.
Some of where I’ve been:
-Invisible Cinema
-The InfoShop on Bank
-Rideau Bakery
-The Ex when it was still at Lansdowne.
Some of where I didn’t get to go:
-The Beachcomber Room
-Capital Music Hall
What about you?
McDonalds Rideau. It was a true beacon of urban culture.
Also Cross Town Traffic. The owners were so nice and gave me tips on how to grow mushrooms :)
Easily Raw Sugar. No cafe has the same ambience. Loved to grab a drink and a couch and read, or see great local shows after dark.
There was a board game meetup there a few times and I made some friends there, I rally liked the place.
Mellos for me.
I used to work in the market and go out with friends there at least once a week. We had a lot of great memories and the food was delicious.
My favorite place to get hangover day drunk for breakfast. So many good memories I don’t remember.
Mellos is an excellent choice. I’m happy I got to experience it once before it closed, but I slept on that place for WAY too long.
It didn’t look like much, but the cauliflower bites and the burgers were awesome. The staff were fun people too.
There was a ramen shop owned by a family friend on Bank I think that shut down a few years ago due to bankruptcy. The ambiance was pretty good and the food was tasty.
Surprised no one has mentioned the exhibition.
Also, Foody Goody buffet in bells corners, and Lady Janes donuts in Carling.
-Invisible Cinema
-The InfoShop on BankThese sound cool, can you tell us how these places were and what you enjoyed there ? (I’m not from Ottawa)
For sure!
So Invisible Cinema was a video store on Bank that carried a lot of specialty and niche movies. Some high brow, some B movie stuff, basically things you probably wouldn’t see in your average video store. Was on the floor above Wallacks.
The InfoShop was an anarchist-led community space at Bank and Cooper (shared the floor with 1 in 10) with a few things, but what interested me was the zine library. Had all sorts of very cool DIY zines from all over the place on all sorts of topics.
Both closed several years ago, but were cornerstone “Some bits of Ottawa are pretty cool” places for me.
Great picture :)
Is it common to have infoshops in permanent locations in Canada ? And where else can you find fanzines ?And this is the part that made it particularly interesting to me - I don’t know! The one in Ottawa was the first I had heard of or seen. I’m almost certain there are others though in major urban areas (I’d be shocked if there wasn’t one, or used to be somewhere in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, for example).
I’m not super tied into the zine community here (though I know it exists and is pretty bumping all things considered), but we have zine fairs from time to time at (historically) The Bronson Centre, Possible Worlds carries some zines (more artsy IIRC, but worth checking out), etc.
Would love to hear comments from others re: finding zines (and specific fan zines) in town!
I miss JSP, it wasn’t fancy, but I spent a lot of time there when I first moved to Ottawa.
There was this one place on Lancaster road, Hot Shots, or something like that. Basically hockey pucks got shot out at you like it was giving you a pass. You were supposed to score on all the targets as quickly as possible. It was fun doing that with some friends. It was located by Minto arena (also now gone) and the Ottawa Athletic Club (also gone).
That sounds fun as hell!