What started with Tavern on the Hill has grown into five patios that can seat nearly 1,400 sun-lovers.
When Tavern on the Hill opened in Major’s Hill Park in 2016, Mother Nature gave the now iconic patio a very wet welcome.
“For the first 15 days, it rained,” veteran Ottawa entrepreneur Andre Schad recalls. “It thought, ‘This could be the dumbest, worst project I’ve ever done.’”
Fortunately, when the sun came out, people flocked to the new patio flanked by the Ottawa River, the National Gallery of Canada and the park. While Schad had hoped to do perhaps $500,000 in sales that summer, the real numbers were four or five times that amount.
“It just exploded,” he says. “We’ve been playing catch-up ever since.”
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Almost a decade later, Schad’s Tavern Group consists of five flourishing patios from Bate Island to Lac Leamy. Taken together, they have shown how popular the national capital’s waterfronts can be, while suggesting that more can be done to make the most of them.
After Tavern on the Hill came Tavern on the Falls beside the Rideau Falls in New Edinburgh, Schad’s 2018 follow-up not far from where he lives.
Next, just after the COVID-19 pandemic began, Schad nonetheless opened Tavern at the Gallery at the National Gallery. Unlike his other taverns, which face greater challenges when it comes to their limited infrastructures, the Gallery patio is a full-service eatery with an enlarged menu and a kitchen to support it.
Last year saw Schad’s group expand to include Tavern on the Island, on Bate Island off the Champlain Bridge, and Tavern at the Lake, on Lac Leamy in Gatineau’s Hull sector.
Combined, these five patios seat almost 1,400 sun-lovers, making Schad Ottawa’s patio king.
“You get the itch,” he says. “There’s a lot of great waterfront property here. They might need some fun.”
All but the National Gallery’s patio are on National Capital Commission properties, and Schad has good things to say about his landlord.
“I’m pretty thrilled that the NCC has really got its eye on activation of the waterways, getting patios out there,” he says.
“Clearly Andre has done a wonderful job, in concert with what we were aiming for,” responds NCC CEO Tobi Nussbaum.
“I’m embarrassed to tell you how often I go to them,” Nussbaum says, adding that his office is near Tavern on the Hill and that he’d been to Tavern on the Falls recently.
Schad gives Nussbaum credit for his vision in terms of activating the NCC’s waterfront assets. “I think Tobi gets it. Tobi understands the water and the city,” he says.
Nussbaum points out that the request for proposals that led to Schad’s first two patios went out before he became the NCC’s CEO in 2019.
“My role was to say, ‘Hey, let’s keep it up and kind of double down on really offering more opportunities to do this kind of offering,’” he says.
“I can tell you, the whole (NCC) team is very invested in this (waterfront activation),” Nussbaum says. “Everyone agrees on this need. Residents have been crying out for this kind of amenity.”
Schad says Tavern on the Hill proved a concept that paved the way for not only his other patios but also the NCC’s waterfront projects with other partners.
In particular, the trailblazing tavern showed that alcohol could be sold in a park, says Schad.
“It wasn’t easy getting that approved, but we did,” he says. “All of a sudden, we got family out, we got suits and ties. We don’t have any issues that you do in some of the bars in the Market. It turned out really, really well.”
Nussbaum says the activation of Ottawa’s waterfront properties, which includes recent NCC developments at Westboro Beach, Jacques Cartier Park, the River House in Ottawa’s east end, Remic Rapids, Patterson Creek and elsewhere, is part of a global movement. He cites cities such as Copenhagen, Paris, Oslo, Toronto and Halifax as like-minded when it comes to improving the public’s use of their waterfronts.
“They’re profound transformations happening,” Nussbaum says.
Nussbaum notes that the NCC found partners other than Schad to bring food and drink to Jacques Cartier Park, while Schad is glad to see other food and beverage operators working with the NCC. “The more the merrier,” he says. “Just bringing people out to Ottawa to the river is such a good idea.”
Before opening his patios, Schad had been doing business in the ByWard Market since the early 1990s, selling clothes at his eponymous boutiques. As early as 2014, Schad was worried about the Market’s decline due to prolonged construction on Sussex Drive and the imminent arrival of Lansdowne Park. He went then to the NCC to discuss making better use of Major’s Hill Park.
“I just felt that was a great asset to bring people to ByWard to help re-populate it with customers,” he says.
For a year, Schad’s pitch to put a restaurant in the park — one inspiration was Tavern on the Green in New York’s Central Park — fell on deaf ears, he says. But then the NCC came around, and after that it was a matter of overcoming daunting logistical hurdles.
A full restaurant would have been too expensive, he says, never mind near-impossible. There was very little infrastructure in the building that was once called Header House, a former workshop for NCC gardeners. Fitting that building with ventilation, fire-suppression equipment or deep fryers was out of the question due to its heritage status, Schad says.
“You can’t punch holes,” he says. As a result, “cooking has always been an obstacle.”
But then, a chef friend suggested to Schad: Why don’t you just do hot dogs?
They weren’t delicacies, but “gourmet” versions of the all-beef dogs cemented Tavern on the Hill as a go-to for attractive snacks as well as beverages.
Now, classic tube steaks go for $7.50, while fancier all-beef creations topped with everything from bulgogi beef and kimchi to pulled pork and sauerkraut to black bean salsa can cost $12 or $13. Tacos are available this year as well, plus protein bowls, a few desserts, and of course beer, wine and cocktails.
“We’re a big, glorified canteen… but we seem to have hit a fun spot with a lot of people for casual dining, good cocktails and bar access,” says Schad.
Tavern on the Hill still faces other challenges due to its location.
It was closed 2022, 2023 and until Canada Day last year while the NCC’s new Pìdàban Passage footbridge was being built. “We got knocked out of Tavern on the Hill for a long time,” says Schad. “It didn’t seem like that bridge was ever going to finish.
“But now it’s been super, super busy ever since that bridge has opened.”
There are also ongoing issues because of the tavern’s proximity to the rougher side of the nearby ByWard Market.
Security costs are “extensive,” break-ins are constant, and damage to property can cost in the tens of thousands annually, says Schad.
Still, his flagship patio is to grow this summer to seat 500 people. It could well be Ottawa’s largest patio, not to mention one that will open until 2 a.m. and even pulse to the sound of DJs when weather and demand permit.
Schad says he’s in preliminary talks with the NCC about expanding his offerings at Bate Island. He says he’s also been approached by a federal organization about the possibility of opening a patio on its property.
“Everybody’s looking for a little fun, looking for a little revenue,” he says.
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