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GENERAL MANAGER DAVE BREITENHERDT SAYS RENOVATED NOSTALGICA WILL OPEN IN JANUARY

Ok, we know where Café Nostalgica is physically. It’s located just steps from Thompson and Pérez Hall on the north-eastern outskirts of the University of Ottawa’s campus. But, like… where is Café Nostalgica metaphorically? The latter is the question that students on the university’s campus ponder every time they walk to class and pass by the unused building.

The Graduate Student’ Association (GSAÉD) pub closed in March 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and has remained shuttered ever since. In September 2021, the Fulcrum interviewed Nostalgica general manager Dave Breitenherdt about a potential opening.

“That would be a [GSAÉD] Board of Directors decision, I guess … it could be January, it could also be October,” said Breitenherdt at the time. Flash forward to December 2024, and Nostalgica remains closed.

Breitenherdt, who has been employed in the restaurant and bar industry for about 40 years, now says the pub will open in January 2025 — after some extensive renovations. “We had various [re-opening] scenarios,” explained Breitenherdt as he took me on a tour of the under-renovation space in late November.

The general manager explained there was “consensus” not to attempt to re-open after the first lockdown and noted that the decision was made by GSAÉD to change the restaurant’s features for the eventual re-opening. “2022, we finally came to a plan that GSAÉD liked, to some rendering that they liked,” said Breitenherdt.

After the rendering was finalized and the final plans were approved in 2023, there were still hoops to jump through. “We had a lot of back-and-forth with the university because although our plans were up-to-date according to Ontario building code standards … the university has higher standards.”

Finally, after being approved by the university this past summer, the physical renovations could start, which include a new bar, flooring, and a stage. “Most of the stuff is being built off-site,” said Breitenherdt, adding that the interior was the “smallest part of the project,” a nod at the bigger plans for the patio.

What is Café Nostalgica?

Considering that the last class of undergraduate students who co-existed on the University of Ottawa’s campus at the same time as Nostalgica began to graduate in May 2023, maybe a more relevant question would be ‘What is Café Nostalgica?’

GSAÉD is the sole shareholder of 1070434 Ontario Inc. — operating as Café Nostalgica — and is responsible for its operation. Breitenherdt has served as general manager since 2013.

As for funding, since 2013 “there has been no [GSAÉD] subsidies” before a cash injection this fall when GSAÉD invested in Nostalgica to see the renovations through. “Until then, we were self-sufficient,” said Breitenherdt.

The Fulcrum reached out to GSAÉD repeatedly for their latest budget and about Nostalgica in specific, but received no response. The last budget available on the association’s website is from 2020.

Students, professors, and U of O employees have been missing the former campus staple. “Time to bring something back to this space!” says Megan McMeekin, a librarian at the university. “It was a great place to gather with colleagues [and for] work lunches and even holiday parties. I know a lot of colleagues have hoped it would re-open.

“What Nostalgica?” asked one student when asked if they miss it, while another called to “bring back the bar.” Kaitlyn, a second-year biology student, said she was “nostalgic for a pub [she] never even got the chance to use.” Others stated dissatisfaction with GSAÉD’s management of the bar.

A New Vision for an Old Hangout

Breitenherdt took me on a tour of the under-construction building, which he said “will still feel like Nostalgica” when complete. Planned new features include the stage being moved to the east wall and a new bar. Most of the fixtures, like the tables, chairs, and decorations will remain.

“The inside is not a big project,” said Breitenherdt. “It’s just taking us so long because it’s tagged onto the outside.” The outside will feel new not just to undergraduates who have never been to the pub, but also to older students, staff, and professors — who have.

After tearing up the concrete pavers that layered the patio, plans call for a 20-foot stage with full lighting and a sound system to be placed on part of the patio closest to the street corner. The patio will then be extended to the full property line on the east — along with being covered and heated, to make it a four-season lounge.

On the east side of the outdoor space, Breitenherdt said he is excited to bring in local food vendors. “I want to bring more food diversity to campus, because [currently] it’s a lot of corporations,” pointing to the Indian food truck that opened by CRX as an example of a vendor he would like to see on the patio. “You can order from us or from here, or from there, alcohol will be done by us.”

The general manager says that the plan is to make two distinct settings, for, say, concerts running simultaneously inside and outside, noting that the inside did not have much room to expand but the patio does.

“This basically came all out of my head,” Breitenherdt explained. “But based upon the guidelines that [GSAÉD] said … we looked at different configurations of multiple businesses, that didn’t work. Then we’re like, ‘what can we do outside?’ We can have food trucks outside, we can change parking lots.

‘University doesn’t want food trucks,’ okay, what do we do then? We want more entertainment, when I think about pubs, I think about games. Well, okay, we can’t do games [inside] because we need all of our seats … I need to generate income so we can keep the place open, so [Nostalgica] can be a good employer to make sure everybody can keep their hours.”

That was when Breitenherdt zeroed in on the unused space to the east of the patio and building. “We have space that we don’t use, can we create a games area there?”

The new games area, with fixtures like ping-pong and chess, will accompany a garden, in which fruit and vegetables are set to be grown. The garden, says Breitenherdt, is part of a plan to add a lot of greenery to offset emissions, including planter boxes around the perimeter of the patio.

Breitenherdt says the feedback he’s received along the way has been extremely useful to getting this project to its current state. “How can we build something that as the university, as [graduate] students, as any student, as anybody, can look at, like, this is awesome,” Breitenherdt recalled asking himself, adding that the expensive real estate on campus should be used as a student space.

“It’s kind of trying to create like a green, fun, oasis where people can just come, hang out, have a beer, have a good bite to eat, [and] not get gouged [on] pricing.”

Students have good reason to only believe a planned second-semester re-opening when they see it, though Breitenherdt has gone so far as to point to Jan. 27 as the date students can once again grab a pint on campus.

• Editor’s Note: In the first section, a reference was made to it currently being December 2025, which has been fixed to 2024.