What would have been the final chapter for a local cafe has instead brought fresh coffee and flowers back to Osborne Village.
Small Mercies, a cafe and boutique, reopened its doors on July 3 after being closed for more than a year after a fire tore through the building.
“It sounds cheesy, but I didn’t want to give up on this,” said Arden Coy, co-owner of Small Mercies. “I really wanted to stick it out for people to come back and enjoy again.”
Early on June 3, 2023, Coy received a call that smoke was detected in the cafe. She raced to the building, peeling out of her driveway with tires screeching.
MATTHEW FRANK / FREE PRESS
Co-owner Arden Coy has done a booming business since reopening Small Mercies, a cafe and boutique in Osborne Village.
When she arrived, she saw the entire building was in flames and clouded with smoke. Once firefighters doused the fire, Coy went inside the building to find the ceiling caved in, the shop flooded and the courtyard hazy.
She said the fire has brought more community support than she’s seen before. The day of the fire, Coy put a message out that she needed boxes to move the undamaged products and supplies. She immediately received more than 20 messages from local businesses and community members to help.
“It was just something so simple, like a box. It’s just made us feel like okay, this is OK, we’re going to get through it, there’s help,” said Coy on Saturday.
While the renovation process after the fire was physically and mentally draining, Coy viewed Osborne Village as her second home and insisted on reopening. Coy grew up in Osborne Village, working behind the counter of her mother’s two stores, Silver Lotus and Rooster.
Coy moved the shop’s products to her mother’s two stores when the renovations were underway so she could keep selling.
“We want people to feel welcome and safe,” said Coy. “And if we keep closing down stores, there’s not going to be a heart in Osborne. “And I think that’s so important because there’s so much heart here already.”
MATTHEW FRANK / FREE PRESS
Reopening Small Mercies was an emotional experience for co-owner Arden Coy.
When Small Mercies reopened, it was an emotional experience for Coy. She’s still taken aback by how busy it has been since reopening. She’s grateful to see old customers returning and new ones discovering the cafe.
“It feels like kind of a reunion again. That’s very special,” said Coy.
Small Mercies first opened in 2019. Coy said majority of the cafe’s life has been constant phases of opening and closing, starting first with COVID-19 and then followed by last year’s fire.
Dried flowers were the lifeline that kept the cafe open during COVID-19 pandemic, Coy said. It’s still the shop’s best selling item.
“Almost every regular (customer) that came in would be ordering weekly flowers. And then that’s what kept us going. It wasn’t necessarily on us. It was more so just Osborne as a whole,” said Coy.
Now, the cafe is bustling and brimming with people, with it’s European-style courtyard hidden behind the shop being one of the biggest draws for customers.
Saturday was the first time Malina Tillberg and her mother had been back to Small Mercies since it closed.
“It’s good to see so many people. I’ve never seen it so busy,” said Tillberg.
Tillberg was worried if the cafe would survive when they heard news of the fire. But when she saw an Instagram post announcing that the shop would reopen, she told her mother they would be going as soon it opened.
Zohreh Gervais, executive director for Osborne Village BIZ, is thrilled to have the cafe reopen and offer another option for people to grab a coffee. She sees Osborne Village on the cusp of beginning its next evolution of unique spaces and shops.
“I think that Small Mercies is really a beautiful example of that, because they had a shop before, they obviously had to close for quite some time for the renovations and now they’re open and they’re better than ever,” said Gervais.
“There’s nowhere else in the city that feels like Small Mercies. It’s such an incredible destination for people to come to the village.”
Gervais said the reopening of Small Mercies shows how much Winnipeggers support local businesses.
matthew.frank@freepress.mb.ca