Gitanes Burger, the Ottawa eatery also known as Gburger, is leaving its Elgin Street location after 10 years and moving into the former location of the iconic John’s Diner on Wellington Street West.
Gitanes Burger announced on Instagram Monday that the burger joint will close its doors at the end of this week.
With work underway at the new location on Wellington, Gitanes managing director Nader Salib told KT’s sister publication the Ottawa Business Journal that he hopes the restaurant will be serving up food again by the end of August.
“It’s been 10 years and it kind of just flew by,” said Salib. “The lease is up and we had to make a decision. That corner meant so much to us but, in the end, the burger concept doesn’t warrant being in the space it was in.”
Before Gburger was created, the building at the corner of Elgin Street and Gladstone Avenue went through multiple iterations after Salib moved into the space a decade ago.
“The whole top floor of 380 Elgin was kind of like my big passion project,” said Salib.
The split-level building originally housed multiple concepts, all owned by Salib: a beauty salon, Le Petit Salon, which continues to operate; as well as Common, which included a clothing shop, cocktail bar and eatery.
Despite early excitement, Salib said all three businesses, especially Common, were hit with back-to-back challenges starting in 2019 when major construction shut down Elgin Street for more than a year.
“That was really, really hard on business,” he said. “People were just kind of avoiding Elgin at the time. I remember that was the first time ever that we had a night with no reservations on the book.”
The problem didn’t end with the construction. Just as things started to recover, COVID-19 lockdowns hit. During the pandemic, Salib decided to close Common and go in a different direction.
That’s when the burger concept was born.
“I’d had a restaurant that had opened just across the street, which was Gitanes,” he said. “It opened in October of the year right before COVID. We didn’t want to do that type of food for takeout during COVID but we had a burger that was pretty popular on the menu. So we thought, okay, let’s do burgers and see how long that lasts.”
The burger venture gained enough popularity that Salib and his team decided to spin it off into its own brand and create the Gburger restaurant across the street in the former Common space.
“It started as a pop-up and just continued to grow,” he said. “Once everything reopened after COVID, we were like, do we really just shut this down? Or do we grow around it?”
The Elgin Street location had also started showing its age when the main staircase collapsed earlier this month, forcing Salib and his neighbours to close for a few days.
With the lease coming up for renewal, Salib said he decided to move out when the opportunity came up to take over the former location of John’s Diner, which closed in April after 51 years in business. The diner format, he said, was a better fit for Gburger’s branding.
“It’ll be a little more of a traditional burger (restaurant) model,” he said. “They’ll be able to go in, order their food, then have a seat — as opposed to a server coming up tableside. We’ll still have a strong beverage program, cocktails and wine, but everything will be in a takeaway format. And there will be a little area for the kids as well. We noticed the brand lends itself well to families.”
Salib added that the space felt like “the right home” for the concept.
“(John’s Diner) was so iconic in the city and what they did they did so well for so long,” he said. “They were looking for somebody that was really going to take care of the space. Gburger just seems like the right fit.”