As some businesses in downtown Edmonton close, others are opening. That includes Susan Forsey’s Solar restaurant. Located on Jasper Avenue at 104 Street in the former location of a convenience store, Forsey’s breakfast, lunch and brunch spot that started up at the beginning of June is her third in the city’s core. “Anybody who’s an Edmontonian knows how rough this corner used to be,” Forsey, who also co-owns the neighbouring Cask & Barrel and the nearby Rocky Mountain Icehouse with her husband, told CTV News Edmonton on Wednesday. “We wanted to kind of clean it up. We wanted to do our part. We wanted to bring in an establishment that’s not immediate in the downtown core.” Solar joins a downtown landscape that has seen a few familiar hospitality names close in recent weeks, including Greta, Khazana and KB & Co. But despite others’ negative views about doing business in downtown Edmonton, Forsey says she’s confident in the city’s core. “We’re all doing every little bit that we can to make it better and easier and safer,” she said, pointing out the increased presence of peace officers at nearby LRT stations as an example. “We’re all doing our parts, so I wouldn’t write off downtown Edmonton. I really wouldn’t.” Other hospitality entrepreneurs, too, are willing to take a chance and set up shop centrally. In fact, over the last couple of years, more businesses opened than closed. According to the City of Edmonton, 46 restaurants opened in 2025, while 29 closed. The year before, 49 of them opened for business, while 25 shut down. Numbers for this year are not available. And at least one group that owns nearby businesses want to do their part to bolster their neighbours. The owners of two Riverdale locales are buying gift cards from downtown shops and handing them out to their customers. Jay Downton, the co-owner of Little Brick Cafe and Dogpatch Pub, says the gesture is their own plan to try to generate more business in Edmonton’s core. “We came up with the idea of sharing a portion of our sales with a local downtown business every week,” Downton told CTV News Edmonton. “We want to leverage our platforms. We have a really strong social following. We want to engage with these business owners, have them tell their story, and share that with Edmonton.” Forsey “loves” the gesture. “None of us compete with each other,” she said. “We don’t have that kind of rivalry. We want all of us to succeed. It breaks our hearts when we hear somebody else closing. We still might have to close. You don’t know.” With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Nahreman Issa
