Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Good morning, Fort McMurray, wood, Buffalo, and the rest of the world. You've tuned into the Mac city morning show. I am your host Elliot Pierre. And as per usual, we're going to start this episode the same way we start off every episode with a moment of gratitude. I know you could be doing a million other things with your time. So the fact that you're spending with us truly does mean the world to me. So thank you on that note, Tanner hit him with the intro.
Speaker 0 00:00:34 All right. And we're back now, as you can tell, we're not on the set of the Mac city morning show. I'm, I'm actually on a business trip and I'm in Winnipeg and I'm staying in an awesome hotel, um, ran by some awesome individuals. And I figured, Hey, I might as well give them some shine. So as everybody knows at this point of the show, I don't introduce myself or my guests. Sorry. Cause they could do a better job than I. So on that note, sir, can you please tell everybody at home who you are and what you're about?
Speaker 2 00:00:58 Excellent. Thanks. Thanks for having me Elliot. So my name is Joel Waterman. I'm the general manager here at the end at the forks and at the forks is 116 room boutique lifestyle hotel here in Winnipeg. It's located on the campus of the forks, which is Winnipeg's top tourist destination. If you're thinking dining shopping river trails, uh, getting out on the boat, uh, all kinds of stuff going on down here and more to come over the next 20 years as they developed the Railside portion of the, of the campus here. So, uh, that's who I am in at the forks is part of the spare hotel portfolio. So we manage or own three hotels here in the city. Uh, lots of restaurants. We have a Riverstone spa downstairs as well, which has a beautiful spa. And then we operate, uh, catering and restaurant operations in some Winnipeg's top institutions as well.
Speaker 0 00:01:46 Yeah, pretty busy. We're pretty busy, busy. That's awesome. So how long has this establishment?
Speaker 2 00:01:53 So this hotel was built in 2004. The forks has been around for about 25 years. I want to say. Uh, and the hotel was developed, you know, shortly after things started popping up on the site here. Uh, our parent company, we own, uh, one of the other hotels that we operate is in the Norwood hotel in St. Boniface in the French quarter, Winnipeg, uh, and are the family that owns a, a, our company. They, the grandfather of our current CEO, he bought that hotel in 1937. So we're the longest standing family owned hotel company in all of Western Canada. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:02:28 And you yourself, are you
Speaker 2 00:02:29 From Winnipeg? I am born and raised in Winnipeg. Uh, so I spent many years at a Hilton property. I've been in the industry for almost 25 years now, a brief foray to Regina for about a year and a half. The opera guy managed a hotel there. Um, but uh, I love this hotel, love this company and the location you can't get better. Right. So,
Speaker 0 00:02:48 Yeah, in regards to the hotel industry, obviously, like you said, 20 plus years in it, how did you first get attracted and, or into,
Speaker 2 00:02:55 Yeah, it's funny that you asked that. Uh, I think it's a common story amongst I kind of came in the side door if you will. So, uh, I always thought I would probably be doing something maybe similar to you. Uh, you know, I was, uh, pursued stage acting a little bit in my early twenties, uh, kind of thought I'd maybe be doing journalism, broadcasting, something along those lines, but at some point along the way, uh, I took a course to be a certified travel agent, was hoping to maybe travel a little bit, work in the Caribbean, those types of things, and ended up working in a hotel. Uh, and I've never looked back. I've had any job you can imagine in the industry almost, but, uh, really enjoy the, a lot of it, but marketing and the yield management and the financial side of things and that, that bodes well, if you want to sort of rise to the top and be a GM for sure. Cool. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:03:45 Did you ever make it down to the Caribbean?
Speaker 2 00:03:46 Uh, no. I've been to Mexico, but not to the Caribbean. So one day, one day, for sure. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 0 00:03:53 I love fortunate to travel a little bit around the Caribbean through my life. It's definitely, it's a cool spot. I bet it's a cool spot to go to. So growing up in Winnipeg as me and my business partner here were traveling, um, what are certain things that we should go check out?
Speaker 2 00:04:09 So, um, you know, Winnipeg sometimes is a little bit underrated, you know, we're in the heart of the continent here. Um, you know, we don't have some of the possess that maybe some of the Torontos and Vancouver's do, but, um, it's a fantastic city. Uh, one thing for sure is the local arts and music scene here in Winnipeg is amazing. A little bit depressed with the COVID pandemic right now is live theater and live music has been been, uh, you know, put to the sidelines, but, uh, you know, premier theater exchange, Manitoba theater center, we've got amazing fringe festival in the summer. Um, summer Winnipeggers take full advantage of summer. So there's during normal times there's a different type of festival theater, cultural food, whatever every weekend, a amazing food scene here, for sure. Um, just a, you know, it's a very, uh, diverse multicultural city.
Speaker 2 00:05:01 So you have a lot of ethnic influences in the food we've been noticing that. Absolutely. Um, but then a lot of talent as well in the last few years where just these amazing small little dining rooms are popping up and small plates and just a lot of imagination that way. Uh, you know, I mentioned St. Boniface, it's the largest, uh, it's the largest French neighborhood outside of Quebec in all of Canada. So there's a lot of history there. Uh, you've got the exchange district just sort of north of us here, which is amazing architecture. Yeah. Amazing turn of the century. It was a Winnipeg was being called the Chicago of the north. So, um, great neighborhood to walk around and check out little restaurants, little shops. Uh, I like it in the fall and winter as well. Like, you know, it's summer right now, but, uh, winter time is amazing to walk around there, right?
Speaker 2 00:05:52 Obviously the forks, um, Assiniboine park and the zoo, they're doing a lot of great things. There's the new diversity gardens that are just opening up now. Uh, the Winnipeg art gallery just opened up, uh, the new annual arts center, uh, which is, uh, is named, uh, <inaudible>, um, which is the largest collection of vineyard art in the world. So there's amazing pieces there. The building itself, uh, designed by Michael Molton is just an amazing, uh, experience in itself just to be in the building. Uh, and then just cross away from us as the Canadian museum for human rights.
Speaker 0 00:06:29 We're going to go check that out tomorrow. Perfect.
Speaker 2 00:06:31 Yeah. So it's the only national museum, uh, in the country. That's not in Ottawa and it's, it opened in fall of 2014. Um, it's an amazing experience, you know, pretty much have to block the whole day. Just a, it's a, it's an emotional, uh, experience to be in that building and, and see some of the exhibits for sure.
Speaker 0 00:06:51 Yeah. Now the cool thing, like you have a beautiful hotel, like the amenities in this hotel, a great buy room is phenomenal. I'm really liking it. Um, but you mentioned it before, like we are at the forks, there's tons of different things to do here. So this hotel, although beautiful. And I like the word you use boutique because it has that like kind of intimate feeling for sure it does, but you're in the heart of everything from, like you said, the forks market, you have the museum there across the hall or street is a children's museum as well. Children's museums. I don't like a six year old little boy and he's been to Winnipeg with me before, but I never knew about that museum. What's that about? Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:07:27 So the children's museum, um, it's been, you're going to put me on the spot to guess how long it's been around, probably about the same timeframe as the hotel. Um, very interactive museum. So you go in there, you know, you've got some of the traditional things for kids like slides and different stuff, but you've got arts and crafts. You've got climbing things, you got it. It's, it's, uh, something for them to have fun, but they're always, they're also going to learn a little bit as well. Uh, lots of interactive type, uh, components to the museum. Um, big spaces, very safe. Uh, they got a cool train with all the bells and whistles of the train that the kids can get on and sit in the seats and check out the engine and stuff like that. So that's pretty neat. Um, so that's great. And the forks and all the amenities here, I mean, you know, the history and the significance of the forks, obviously it's a meaning meaning place for thousands of years where the two rivers meet, but, um, they've done a tremendous job because it's, it's so locally focused. There's no, not to kind of disparage the Starbucks of the world and stuff, but there's no brands on site here at the
Speaker 0 00:08:33 Forks. Definitely knows that. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:08:35 There's no brands, it's all, all local. Uh, so, um, and you're seeing a bit of a changing of the guard after the first, I think set of leases from the first 20 years or whatever. So it sorta ended. So you're seeing a bit of new, fresh blood as far as the partners that are onsite. Um, bill three 40 years ago, they put in the common, so you can now get a beer or a glass of wine and walk around the site within the food options are amazing. Uh, so it's a cool place to be. It really is
Speaker 0 00:09:05 Like the, like I said, the hotel in itself is amazing, but just in this area alone, we're here for a number of days, but just this area alone, you don't have to leave. And we have not even scratched the surface of a we've seen here. If you're coming to Winnipeg, this is a beautiful hotel stay in just because you could, you're in walking distance of so many.
Speaker 2 00:09:23 Yeah, you nailed it. It's and that's the feedback we overwhelmingly get from all of our guests. Um, very positive feedback. And I mean, like I said, I've been in the industry for many years, have managed four hotels, this managing this hotels. It's, it's a different animal altogether. The other ones you're so focused on what your competitors are doing, what your market share is we, we have great market share here, but we're insulated. We're a different type of hotel. Um, in the sense that we have some, we have a little bit of built in demand, but we just have all these things at our fingertips and for a guests, they just walk out the door and, and he can go to any restaurant. You can just walk across the bridge to St. Boniface. You can, you know, five, 10 minutes you're in the exchange district, walk along the rivers. Uh, and so many interesting things to see just right, right outside your door,
Speaker 0 00:10:09 Do we walked? You can do a riverboat cruise, literally two minutes down the road. There's a beach where you can go hang out. There's some comfy chairs. And all of a sudden we just saw these boats going back and forth 40 bucks. We went for a tour and we're able to do like an architectural boat tour, historical tour of Winnipeg. Find out tons about like the main tea and L'Oreal and golden boy.
Speaker 2 00:10:32 It is. It's amazing. I didn't want my, I've got two daughters, uh, at home myself and they, they always want to get on that boat whenever we're down here at the forks, it's fun. And I think it will continue to be an opportunity for Winnipeg to sort of, uh, grow that tourist piece around the rivers, um, in the winter. It's amazing. Uh, the forks pre COVID actually started to probably for the last two years, pre COVID report more visitors to the site in the winter than the summer amazingly. So the river's frozen and, you know, you've got, uh, the warming huts competition every year. So you've got artists from all over the world that are putting up these warming huts. There's all kinds of art installations around the site. Uh, and they're cycled them out every couple of years, people skating playing a quick game of shinny or, you know, just some really fun stuff that are people on the river down there.
Speaker 0 00:11:22 It's a really cool vibe going to pack house. And I know, um, I've been here just my third trip. My business partners is first, and we're already saying we got to come back. Like, it's the collective vibe from the architecture, like you said, from the diversity of the people and the food and like just the creativity and the energy here is really cool.
Speaker 2 00:11:40 It is, it is. We, I think for a while there, when, uh, our first, uh, jets incarnation left, we, uh, you know, we were, we were at a little bit of a self-deprecating arc for a little while. Um, but the last 10, 12 years Winnipeg seeing a boom and, you know, you got these major institutions like the museum and the art center and different stuff going up. Uh, you're seeing, uh, quite a bit of construction and, and, uh, w more residents in the downtown. So just, if you took a walk from here to one of the other hotels, we manage the mirror on waterfront drive.
Speaker 0 00:12:14 We saw that one. That was cool. The architecture on the outside of that building something else. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:12:20 The property. So, um, that whole stretch there, I mean, there's probably a dozen restaurants that weren't there 10 years ago. Tons of condos that weren't there years ago. So, uh, we're on the upswing for sure.
Speaker 0 00:12:33 Yeah. Sweet. Well, listen, man. That's the end of the time that we have, I want to thank you very much for taking the time to sit and chat with me today. It's been awesome. Cause I kind of just asked and he said, yeah, cool. Um, how the show works at the end of the show though, everybody gets a shameless plug slug, a shout out. So for sure the mic is yours. What do you want to shout out? What do you want?
Speaker 2 00:12:50 Sounds good. I mean, like I said, in, at the forks, you're going to come to a Winnipeg's top tourist destination. Um, you know, we've got all kinds of packages that you can book where you're going to get tickets to the museum. You're going to get tickets to the art gallery are going to get some really cool, uh, welcome amenities and, you know, chocolates and different kinds of food and stuff from some of the most unique and iconic, uh, partners in the city here. Uh, I think we recapped it best, right? Like you're at the heart of a Winnipeg, you got so many things that you can do within just walking distance, uh, Smith restaurant downstairs, really cool vibe. Our chef is amazing, uh, easily, one of the most successful restaurants in the city. And then, you know, make sure you book in advance, but Riverstone spa is a go for a massage, go for a pedicure manicure, whatever you want. But, uh, it's a very relaxing serene spa. Uh, you kind of almost forget where you are and, uh, it's amazing. It's amazing. So you can't, you can't beat, uh, coming to this property. I know I'm going to probably say that with a bit of a bias lens, but it's all right. It was one of my favorite spots to be long before I came, uh, came to be, uh, an employee of the company. So you can't, uh, you can't go wrong if you book with us.
Speaker 0 00:14:06 Awesome. Well, Fort McMurray, wood, Buffalo, and the rest of the world, that's been another episode of the Mac city morning show in Winnipeg. Thank you very much again, for tuning in it truly does mean the world to me. So thank you on that note. Hopefully you're having a great day and we'll see you tomorrow. Peace
Speaker 3 00:14:21 Y Dalio Wade, and another morning show later by us.
Speaker 1 00:14:30 You talk about quenching your ugly thirsty.
