The owners of the Middle Eastern eatery on Clarence Street want to replace it with a steakhouse, a cocktail bar and a burger joint.
Fairouz Cafe on Clarence Street is to close in mid-April so that its owners can open three new food-and-drink businesses in the National Capital Commission-owned space.
“We’re trying to embrace a new style, a hybrid hospitality space,” co-owner Tony Garcia says.
His Middle Eastern restaurant, which will mark its 10th anniversary next month, is to have its last service on April 12. Garcia hopes that just a few weeks later in the Fairouz space he will be able to open a steakhouse called Sussex & Co. and a cocktail bar called Little Sussex. A third brand, a burger business called Burger Bar, is to open later this year, according to his plan.
The cocktail bar will be in the front of Fairouz’s space, while the steakhouse will be in the rear and include the rear patio. The side patio will become the burger business, Garcia says.
“We’ve survived through trucker things and the pandemic, we have wonderful regulars,” Garcia says. “But there comes a time when you make a decision. The world is changing.” The idea behind the hybrid business is to attract more customers with three concepts and price points.
Garcia says business at Fairouz has been “up and down” and “quite unpredictable” in recent years. In the first few years after the COVID-19 pandemic, Fairouz’s patios were full, but he also thinks that tourist traffic is down in the ByWard Market.
The switch-up at 15 Clarence St. is the latest high-profile change in the landscape in the ByWard Market, as the historic neighbourhood’s businesses and residents continue to grapple with homelessness, crime and other issues. On Dalhousie Street, Dunn’s Famous Deli closed March 23, and a Chuck’s Roadhouse location is to replace it. Blue Cactus Bar and Grill closed after its New Year’s Eve party, and Grey’s Social Eatery recently opened in its place.
Evening Update
While business in the ByWard Market has been inconsistent, Garcia says he wants to stay there. He’s encouraged that Live Nation Canada is to open a spacious night club next year about three blocks from his Clarence Street location. He thinks Ottawa Tourism and the ByWard Market District Authority can improve the fortunes of the neighbourhood’s businesses.
“I think the timing is right to offer a couple of different concepts,” Garcia says.
He says he had been looking into opening his multi-brand venue in the former Earl of Sussex Pub, another NCC-owned space just a block north of Fairouz Cafe. But the renovations for that project would have been too expensive, and it made more sense to make over Fairouz’s space, Garcia says.
Fairouz opened in the spring of 2016 as a Middle Eastern fine-dining restaurant in Centretown on Somerset Street West. A year after it opened, Fairouz appeared on the “Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants” list.
But, following the initial disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic, it relocated to Clarence Street and re-launched in October 2020 as a more relaxed eatery, Fairouz Cafe, where its food was also available for takeout and delivery.
The Fairouz name goes back to the 1990s on Ottawa’s restaurant scene. The first Fairouz was located at 343 Somerset St. W., and that was the address of the fine-dining iteration of Fairouz that Garcia and his business partner Hussain Rahal opened in 2016. Trofi, a Greek restaurant, now occupies that address.
