Bistro transforms into neighbourhood pantry
Pivot allows business to focus on supporting surrounding community
Allison Gibson not only felt the pressure of keeping Paintbox Bistro in business during the pandemic, but to also help the surrounding Regent Park neighbourhood with jobs and access to healthy food.
Since April, the restaurant and catering company, at the corner of Dundas Street East and Sackville Street, has been transforming into a food store. Through a partnership with a local grocery start-up called Nibbly, Gibson has been filling the former restaurant space with shelves of product and rehiring her staff. This week, the food shop is open for pickup orders and same-day delivery. In addition, a separate initiative is underway to offer groceries at a reduced cost to help feed lower-income area residents.
“We’re a for-profit business but from the beginning we made a commitment to put the money back into the community,” said Gibson, Paintbox’s director of operations as well as Nibbly’s operations manager. “We prioritize hiring people who live in the neighbourhood. We partnered with schools, organizations and charities to give people jobs. We always paid a living wage, give peer mentoring and job training, support single mothers and people in precarious situations. Come as you are and we’ll help you.”
Paintbox opened eight years ago, dubbing itself a social enterprise where the goal is to provide job opportunities for neighbourhood residents by operating as a bistro, caterer and event space. Gibson is well aware of the challenges in Regent Park, a historically under-resourced neighbourhood that’s been going through mass gentrification in recent years.
It’s why, she said, it’s important that the Nibbly store will be accessible to lower-income residents, particularly Black families as they are more likely to experience food insecurity in the city.
In addition to the online grocery delivery and pickup model that many restaurants and stores have already pivoted to, Gibson said Nibbly will also offer a subsidized delivery option and set up a community corner store where area residents can purchase items with slightly damaged packaging (but otherwise perfectly edible) at a discount. Nibbly will also create food baskets of pantry items for families in need.
The idea for Paintbox turning into a grocery and prepared foods operation came at the last minute, Gibson said. As the pandemic hit in March, and events and gatherings were cancelled at rapid speed, Paintbox lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in catering business.
“Not having money coming in meant I couldn’t hire or train people,” she said. “It was inevitable that we had to declare bankruptcy. We didn’t want to do it, but we had a deadline date in April. It just so happened that the night before I was on the phone with the founders of Nibbly.”
The grocery start-up needed a space for their operation while Paintbox had a restaurant and catering space sitting empty. Both businesses had common goals of funnelling money into local charities and non-profits so Nibbly’s founders also brought Gibson on as an operations manager since she was already familiar with the needs of the neighbourhood and knew who to hire.
Gibson said they’ll be expanding delivery zones throughout the GTA as the staff gets used to the new operation.
“You need the profits to make a difference and divert funds back into the community. When we were producing a $500,000 event, instead of driving a Maserati we were paying people $18 to $20 an hour and providing mentorship,” she said. “We work with the city of Toronto, The United Way is on our advisory board and we partnered with Dixon Hall and the Yonge Street Mission. If you’re not helping others, what are you doing right now?”