Edmonton bar Baijiu wins best patio in Canada

The Baijiu patio is seen in an undated handout photo. (Michael Ng)

Edmontonians love a good patio.

Which comes at no surprise considering there aren’t many months of the year to soak up the sun on one.

But that didn’t stop Baijiu from creating a year-round experience, allowing guests to enjoy the comforts of a patio during the colder months, earning it the best in all of Canada.

The rustic, old world Shanghai-inspired bar and its hidden speakeasy Little Hong Kong has occupied the historic Mercer Building next to Rogers Place for a decade, but its patio only opened a few years ago.

“It used to be a parking lot, essentially,” said owner Kevin Cam in an interview. “I was always knocking on the landlord’s door and trying to convince him to give it to us because I kind of foreseen a patio concept out there.”

After being turned down multiple times, the landlord finally agreed to lease the space to Cam following the last Oilers game in 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down.

When they opened the patio in summer of 2020, the layout was sparse to accommodate social distancing. Now the patio can seat 230 people during the summer months. They’ve also added a DJ booth and a patio bar.

“Every year we’ve been expanding it a bit more,” said Cam.

Since he was paying for the space all year, Cam wanted to utilize the patio in the winter months.

“If we came up with something during the winter which was heated and covered, Edmontonians would come crawling,” he said.

Edward Haynes, founder of EJH Distribution, a company that delivers structures for events such as the Oilers Fan Park, approached Cam with a product that would allow Baijiu’s outdoor space to be open all year.

Tubbo is essentially a transparent enclosure that uses infrared technology to heat the space, and Baijiu is the first to use it in North America.

“It’s a European company and they utilize these structures all over Switzerland, up in the Swiss Alps at ski resorts,” said Cam. “It was exciting to bring it down.”

Now that the weather is favourable to patio activities, Cam and his team are busy preparing the outdoor space.

“Fingers crossed, the Oilers win tonight so that we can get a Saturday home game and open it up with a bang,” said Cam, adding that the patio will be fully open Friday.

Canada’s 100 Best named Baijiu and Little Hong Kong the best patio in the country, a new category for the magazine, Wednesday.

The two watering holes were also listed as one of Canada’s best bars in 2020.

“We want to provide a space where cocktails are being served to the highest quality and service level, but also offer a space that’s essentially not pretentious,” said Cam. “At Baijiu, we make it fun.”