In an effort to ensure there’s food services at the Evergreen Centre, the Town of Nipawin is open to new solutions, including dividing up responsibility for the restaurant and catering to different entities.
The town released an expression of interest Nov. 28 that asked for applicants to come up with out of the box thinking. The deadline was Dec. 6.
“The fact of the matter is: I don’t think there’s an appetite right now from council to just put out an RFP [request for proposal] as we have done in the past, with one private enterprise being solely responsible for all of the food services through the whole Evergreen Centre,” said Barry Elliott, the town’s administrator
The administrator said Dec. 1 that while the process wasn’t complete, there was lots of discussion about making the centre open to all caterers, instead of an exclusive contract.
“I think there’s an interest, perhaps – that council needs to discuss yet – about keeping that catering element more of an open concept where other caterers can access it and groups can work with caterers they prefer.”
Elliott emphasized that everything was still in the discussion stage and that a council committee would examine all of the options after all of the expression of interests came in.
“I will say this: I’m very pleased with the interest we’ve had,” he said. “People are generally recognizing how crucial the food services are over there and there might be a better way of doing things, so they’re giving us their opinions, thoughts and proposals.”
