Ryan Arcand is betting customers will support his new Lovesong restaurant and Tiny's Cheese Shop near his established Iconoclast café in Wîhkwêntôwin.
"It's insane to open a restaurant in this economy," Arcand told Taproot. "But we have probably the best customer base in the city and I'm hoping that our long-standing customers will appreciate something in this space that is similar to our aesthetic and philosophy."
Iconoclast, Arcand's coffee roastery and café, has been in the Oliver Exchange Building at 120 Street and 102 Avenue since 2019. In August, he opened Lovesong in an adjacent building, a reclaimed EPCOR substation, at 12015 102 Avenue NW. In September, Arcand then launched Tiny's Cheese Shop in the OEX2 building just across the courtyard from Lovesong, partnering with Blair Lebsack, the owner of RGE RD and The Butchery, on the project.
Linking Arcand's restaurant and cheese shop is a new, 600-square-foot grow room located in the basement of the substation. There, Arcand grows ingredients to be used at both Lovesong and Tiny's Cheese shop.
Despite Iconoclast being open for more than five years, Arcand said that a year-round farming operation was part of his original business plan before he opened the café. That vision had to be shelved, however, as he focused on gaining business experience. But when his landlord, Beljan Development, recently shared that they were purchasing the substation building next to Iconoclast, Arcand jumped at the opportunity.
"The property came along at the right time," he said. "But real estate is expensive, and I could not afford to only use the property to grow and sell produce. So it became an extension of the business to have a restaurant where we could feature what we've grown."
At present, Arcand's grow room is primarily producing microgreens. "The idea of doing microgreens is pragmatic," he said. "They have a really short grow period. Germination to harvest is 10 to 14 days. The turnaround is really easy, margins are good, and the nutritional value is high."
Arcand said customers can buy the microgreens in the cheese shop, while Lovesong serves the microgreens as a garnish, dehydrates them for salads, and blends them into a slurry for steak marinade.
His vision for farming ingredients extends beyond the new grow room. The building also has a rooftop garden with raised beds that he intends to ramp up next year, with covered planting to start as early as April.
Ingredients for Lovesong's menu, which Arcand described as vegetable-forward, are being sourced from the farming operation. Ingredients that the farming is not able to grow are being sourced, whenever possible, from local producers. Four Whistle Farms supplies much of the restaurant's meat, and staff shop at the nearby 124 Grand Market on Sundays for other items.
Pam Kossowan, manager at Tiny's Cheese Shop, with some of the shop's offerings. (Sharon Yeo)
Arcand's overall approach to food has strongly influenced Lovesong's menu. "My food philosophy has been clean food with nutritional value that makes you feel good," he said. "A lot of restaurant menus are rich and salty, and an hour and a half later, you don't feel great, you feel heavy."
As a result, Lovesong is also focusing on fermenting vegetables, butter, and dairy products. "With our yogurt, for example, we're targeting certain species of probiotics that have proven impacts on things like inflammation in the body and the body's abilities to produce hormones like oxytocin that are good for our body and health," Arcand said.
His healthy eating philosophy is also guiding some of what will be on the shelves at Tiny's Cheese Shop. "Blair's daughter and my daughter are best friends," Arcand said. "As parents, feeding your kids is a daily responsibility. The idea of picking up a (meal) kit speaks to me. As parents, we can stop into Tiny's on the way home, pick up a tetra pack of microgreens for a salad or smoothies, a kit with fresh dough, sauce, cheese, sausage or pepperoni from The Butchery, or a nacho kit with locally-made tortilla chips. Food that's nutritionally rich and the kids will eat."
Arcand is optimistic that meal kits, charcuterie from The Butchery, and their forthcoming takeaway cheese boards are a safer bet given the current climate. "Especially as the economy turns downward, the 1980s house-party style of socializing will become popular again instead of people eating out multiple times a week," Arcand said. "We will feed people in a different way through our businesses."
On the cheese side, Tiny's will offer a rotating selection of fresh cheeses from Canada, the United States, and Europe. The shop will have 40 on hand at a given time, and Arcand said Tiny's will have cheese that other shops don't offer.
"One of the biggest challenges for people who want to sell fresh cheese is that it is a fresh commodity, and the clock is ticking the moment it leaves the farm," Arcand said. "For instance, three hundred dollars of premium goat cheese that you have to sell within 10 to 14 days of arrival. You could potentially lose a lot of money if you can't sell it that week. We're able to take the fresh cheese and offer it on our restaurant menus to mitigate the risk."
Arcand believes the closure of Paddy's Cheese last year means Wîhkwêntôwin is particularly ready for Tiny's. He shared that he was really impressed by Everything Cheese, a cheese shop that opened in Riverbend back in 2010. It closed four years later, something Arcand primarily attributed to its location.
"The reality is that in Edmonton, the success of your model in the independent landscape depends on the location," Arcand said. "Out there (in Riverbend), everyone is used to getting in their car and travelling to a store, getting everything once and going back home. I've felt that this neighbourhood, people have the routine, habit, and appreciation that it's better to go get your bread at a bakery, meat at a butcher shop, cheese at a cheese store."
So far, Arcand has been happy with the response to Tiny's. "Edmonton doesn't have a shop like this since Paddy's closed," Arcand said. "We've had nothing but positive feedback. People are happy there's a cheese shop back in the area."