The article below was published in the May 1, 1998 edition of Kingston Business Journal.
In fact, there is so much happening in Kingston that this story can only scratch the surface.
Kingston's arts scene is one of the most active in Ontario, providing exhibitions and openings for visual art, live theatre, dance and performance art, live music, and numerous arts-related festivals. From this fertile milieu have come dozens of nationally known musicians, writers, visual artists, and actors, many of whom continue to live in Kingston.
In the new city of Kingston, one may choose from among 249 restaurants and nightclubs. That is one to serve about every 642 men, women, and children in the city. They offer an international spectrum of fine dining and a selection of music a larger city might envy. Diners can find everything from fast food and basic dining needs to the cooking of Thailand, Vietnam, China, Japan, Greece, Italy, Austria, Mexico, and many other countries around the world.
Dozens of public and private facilities offer golf, swimming, hockey, baseball, soccer, ice-skating, movies, martial arts, billiards and pool, rock climbing and other family-oriented activities. There are public libraries, public and private art galleries, and more than a dozen museums. For walking and for picnicking, Kingston's Parks and pathways are among the most beautiful in Ontario. In the summer, there is free live music in the parks every day and most evenings.
Visitors from around the world make Kingston an increasingly popular tourist destination,
seeking out this lively town that local residents consider stodgy or even boring. Entrepreneurs
from across Canada are opening new facilities here because they can see the opportunities to
bring even more family entertainment to Kingston.
Stodgy indeed!
Kingston's newest restaurant, located in the Howard Johnson Confederation Place Hotel on
Ontario Street, is Spagucci's on the Water, offering what the advertising calls "fresh, fabulous
Italian cooking."
"This is an Italian family restaurant," according to Jeffery Tyler, Executive Chef and one of the
partners who own Spagucci's. "We have all the basics on the menu -- the hamburgers and club
house sandwiches, but we also have the veals and the fine pastas and so on that everybody can
choose from [for more elegant dining].
"We also specialize in catering at a very professional level," he adds. "We are experienced with
a lot of high-end catering in Ottawa."
With a successful Spagucci's in Ottawa, as well as a catering service popular with business and
government leaders alike, Tyler and his partner, Ken Zalba, saw opportunity in the Kingston
market.
"We felt the need for the restaurant industry," says Tyler. "We felt [there was room for and a]
need for a restaurant [such as Spagucci's]. [We believed we could] bring business and jobs for
the tourist industry.
With Spagucci's on the Water open only since late March of this year, Tyler is thrilled with the
response of Kingstonians. "We have found the market in Kingston very receptive," he says.
"Everybody in this city is very, very friendly."
Another relatively new venture in Kingston is Cosmic adventures, a sort of indoor playground
designed to accommodate adults as well as their children. This large facility, located in the
Atrium Mall on Days Road, features an oversize climbing gym of colourful pipes and open areas
reminiscent of gerbil toys, games of skill, a dining area, private rooms or birthday parties, and
much more.
The focus here is on the family, according to Debra Hill, Cosmic Adventures' manager. "We encourage parents to participate," she says. "We get everything from newborns to about 14, although we advertise to 12." While there is an admission charge for children, adults get in free if accompanied by a child.
According to Hill, Kingston's response to Cosmic Adventures has been nothing less than
phenomenal. "We had about 400 [people visit Cosmic Adventures] every day during March
break," she says. "Kingston is the third Cosmic Adventures, and the company is expanding. We
are beginning to franchise."
In Kingston, Cosmic Adventures is expanding services to meet local customer demand. In the
works are a summer camp and teen nights.
"We are starting a teen night," says Hill, "so the older teens can come out and enjoy [what we
have here]. Teen nights will include a dance with a DJ, games, and even birthday parties. We
hope to have The Border [radio station] provide the DJ for teen nights."
Highly visible in a large inflated building at the center of an old quarry off Division Street
between Weller and Conacher Avenues, Soccer Magic 1 is another newcomer to the Kingston
recreational scene.
Kingston is the second location for Soccer Magic 1. The first is in London, Ontario, and plans
are in the works to expand to the Ottawa and Whitby markets.
Why choose a smaller center like Kingston as the location for a facility devoted to one specific
sport? For Myron Grunberg, Managing Director of Soccer Magic 1, the answer is easy.
"We wanted to give small to medium markets the chance to develop athletes," he says. "If we
don't provide the facilities, then where will our future Olympic athletes come from? We wanted
to give smaller towns the opportunity to grow both athletically and culturally. If you provide the
environment, then we believe the growth will occur."
According to Grunberg, after some research Kingston was a clear choice. "We felt the
demographics back up the fact that there are enough soccer players in Kingston to support [a
facility such as this].
"Kingston is a nice town," Grunberg adds, "a wonderful town with good people."
Nick Roumanis, owner of Raxx Billiards Bar & Grill on Development Drive, is equally
confident of the Kingston market. With more than a dozen pool halls already in Kingston, most
also offering licensed facilities and some also offering live music or other entertainment, more
than a year ago Roumanis opened the largest pool hall in town.
With 20,000 square feet of floor space, Raxx offers 45 billiards tables, dart boards galore, a full-service restaurant, licenced facilities, all in a comfortable environment.
Raxx is "family entertainment center," according to Roumanis.
Roumanis says that he is very pleased with the success his business nas enjoyed over the past
year and a half. He emphasizes that he has received, "good business -- good support from
Kingston."
With a longer experience doing business here, Peter Breitwieser, who owns the Amadeus Cafe
Restaurant on Princess Street in Downtown Kingston, agrees with this assessment of the
Kingston market. His specialized dining establishment has more than tripled in size since he
opened, and it continues to be popular with Kingstonians.
"We have been open six years this summer," says Breitwieser. "It is interesting how we started
up. Tell this story. After going into semi-retirement, my lovely wife Inge said, 'Peter, I love you
deeply but I only have one nerve left and you are on it. Please get out and do something.' So I
said, 'Yes, but what do I do? What can I do?' And she said, 'Go out and open that little sausage
stand you have always wanted.' And that's how we started up."
Breitwieser comes to the business with a solid grounding in the European tradition. "I received
my restaurant training in Austria in the 1950's," he says, "both in chef training and restaurant
administration.
"The herbs I use: I still import from Austria the same herbs and spices I used forty years ago," he
emphasizes. "Mine is a traditional German/Austrian kitchen -- no haute cuisine or nouveau
cuisine."
Breitwieser is quick to point out the growth Amadeus has enjoyed thanks to the support of
Kingston diners.
"We have grown from just 54 seats in the beginning," he says. "We have since added the
outdoor Bavarian Biergarden patio, which seats 65, and the indoor wintergarden, which seats
another 65. So we have grown from 54 seats to more than 180 in just six years."
One unique location in Kingston is the Boiler Room Climbing Gym, constructed inside the
boiler room and chimney of the Woolen Mill just off Rideau Street. The walls and ceilings are
studded with flat, oddly shaped objects intended as grips for climbers to hang on to as they
scramble to the top. The effect is of a large, somewhat fantastic complex of caves.
Asked why he would open such a facility in Kingston, Ian Kilborn of the Boiler Room jokes that,
"One reason is that it earns an income for me."
He then hastens to add that, "[The climbing gym] provides a unique recreational facility for the
residents of Kingston. It follows the model of many other climbing gyms across Ontario and
around the world.
"We have been in business about two and a half -- no, three years," he says. "We get a lot of
groups coming -- a lot of high school groups coming, clubs as well as classes. And we get
groups of adults as well."
A dominant feature of this climbing gym is the chimney, tall enough to be visible many blocks
away. According to Kilborn, "The chimney is the highest indoor climb in Canada. So, yes, it's
fairly unique."
While there are many interesting places and activities in Kingston, some activities do not require a particular place but can be done anywhere in town or at home. Jogging and walking are certainly included among these activities, but so are some more formal, organized game activities. At the center of Kingston's game playing society is Smee's Games & Comics on Wellington Street in downtown Kingston.
Prime among these activities, according to Stuart Leddy, owner of Smee's, is role-play, a sort of
"let's pretend" for adults. For most people, the most familiar of these games may be Dungeons
and Dragons, which gained popularity and some notoriety in the 1960's. However, these days,
there is a variety of role-playing scenarios available, and several are popular in Kingston.
"Compared to what I've seen in other cities," Leddy says, "there is a larger percentage of people
in Kingston who do live-action role-play than in most cities. There are in excess of one hundred
regular players in Kingston. This number is bolstered by casual players such as Queen's students
and others who only live here for part of the year."
Role-plays are practiced wherever the players may gather, sometimes at a specified location,
sometimes on the street or in local cafes. Players use special signs to indicate to others whether
they are "in role" or not. The games themselves are highly organized, utilizing rules and
materials consistent not just in Kingston but across North America. Smee's is the primary
distributor in Kingston for these materials.
Leddy points out that there are a number of role-plays currently being acted out in Kingston.
"The biggest main one is the vampire game," says Leddy of a game that has received some
publicity in local media, primarily due to the unique dress of participants. "There is also one
based on a game called Mage. There is one based on fairies. And there is a science fiction game
-- a fairly new one -- based on a far distant future world. I believe it is set about 6,000 years in
the future."
Played primarily by university students and educated young adults, the role-plays are challenging
intellectual and social exercises. There are strong controls built into the rules to ensure that the
games never become about violence or physical control.
"All of these games are based on political role-play rather than the shoot 'em up variety," says
Leddy. "That's the main attraction: the political strategy and maneuvering.
"There are table-top versions of role-plays as well," says Leddy "and table top battle games.
Then, for just a couple of hours entertainment, there are various card games people can enjoy."
The saying goes that "familiarity breeds contempt," suggesting that we often fail to see the wonder in that which is closest and most familiar to us. Sometimes it takes the eyes of an outsider to show us what we really have. Tourists flock to Kingston from around the world. Entrepreneurs look to Kingston's lively economy to develop new profit centres. Artists in all fields, with national and international reputations, choose to call Kingston home. Perhaps we are not so stodgy as we might have thought.
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