‘We need more space for coffee and to chat with Elders’

A larger-than-usual crowd lined up at Yellowknife’s doomed downtown A&W for the Tuesday lunch hour.

Many people wanted to get their fix before the restaurant closes its doors for good at the end of December – news that had broken a day earlier.

“I’ll eat here every day now,” one customer joked in line.

The Franklin Avenue location is the franchise’s only restaurant in the NWT. More than that, its central location has helped make it a gathering place for Elders, tourists and office workers alike.

Julie Sangris is a regular customer who says she hopes another A&W opens elsewhere in the city.

Sangris used to frequent the restaurant more regularly than she does now. She uses crutches to get around and said she doesn’t always feel safe downtown.

“A&W is not like before. It used to be lots of people, lots of Elders. I used to love sitting around with the Elders,” said Sangris.

She remembered one Elder in particular who frequented A&W daily for her Buddy Burger, fries and Red Rose tea. The staff knew her so well, Sangris said, that they wouldn’t have to ask her what she wanted. She simply paid and waited for her food.

Looking at the round stickers that encourage physical distancing still stuck to the floor, Sangris was reminded of when the restaurant first reopened following the pandemic’s onset.

At the time, she said, the place was so full that you had to wait in line to get a table. “It was just hot,” said Sangris.

She wondered where Elders might go to socialize now.

While there is a Tim Hortons in the mall nearby, it doesn’t have anywhere to sit and enjoy a snack or beverage.

Sangris sometimes takes the bus to a second Tim Hortons in uptown Yellowknife, but says that can be a long trip for people with mobility issues or who might be otherwise vulnerable.

“We need more space like this,” said Sangris of the A&W. “That’s the reason I picked to come here – to have coffee, to warm up to chat with people, chat with Elders.”

A&W’s closure will be another loss of somewhere to sit in downtown Yellowknife, where the provision of gathering-space has been under scrutiny for years.

In 2014, benches outside the post office across the street from A&W were removed. Some residents staged a sit-in to protest the move, which the building’s owner defended on the grounds that its tenants had complained about people drinking, harassing others, and using the property as a washroom.

Almost a decade later, large planters outside the same building – which had become downtown seating in the absence of the benches – were themselves removed, an act that the NWT’s then-health minister called “truly appalling” and which the building owner insisted was part of broader renovation work. (One person associated with the work added that “not having people just sort-of hanging around there might be better.”)

Since then, concrete walls that served as a similar option on A&W’s side of the road have also been removed.

On Tuesday, A&W customer Nick – who did not share his last name – said he’d like to start a petition to keep the location open.

As he sipped a coffee with a friend, he said he visits A&W to use the wifi because he doesn’t always have a phone plan.

Nick said he likes spending time in the restaurant because the staff are friendly, even when they face “abuse” by customers who refuse to leave. He has noticed tourists like it, too, for internet access or quick meals.

Alphonse King said he has spent the past 35 years visiting A&W or its previous incarnations. He said the building had housed the Yellowknife Inn Café before an A&W arrived.

“Everybody used to come here and talk and whatever and find out the news,” said King.

He said he might keep coming to the spot if something new opens in its place.

Whatever might replace the A&W on Franklin Avenue, Sangris said she’ll be disappointed to no longer find her favourite – a Bacon & Egger – in Yellowknife.