Harmony Lunch

[robdrimmie]

I don't want to paste them as assholes, either, but blaming something which ended the day their restaurant opened (the LRT construction) is a bit suspicious, don't you think?

So, the exact quote is "Unfortunately, continual and prolonged LRT and streetscape construction throughout the Uptown and more specifically directly in front of Harmony Lunch have proven to be an insurmountable challenge." (https://andrewcoppolino.com/waterloo/tha...d-so-long/). That's two factors, without weighting, listed chronologically.

Even though construction ceased on a specific date, the deterrent effects of that construction would continue for a while. Patterns take time to be re-established, and people avoiding Uptown due to construction wouldn't have rushed back. They'd have established new habits that explicitly avoid the area and without intentionally wanting to change those habits I suspect most people would continue avoiding it.

We also don't know how the construction impacted any of the opening process. Whatever work was done on the place to update it during the transition between owners may have been impacted and started them off a little bit further back than they expected. Fundamentally, we simply don't have all the information they do.

I do agree with the general sentiment expressed in the thread that the Harmony experiment almost certainly failed for more reasons than just construction. I especially think there's a lot not being said about HIP's plans for the area and how lease timing that and potential agreements about ground floor commercial space might impact Fat Sparrow's ability to speak plainly.

To be clear, I've no beef with speculation or suspicion. We have almost no information and are going to interpret it based on any number of different factors. They may well be wrong but I don't think they're lying, and that's an important distinction to me.

Skepticism is pretty much always good in my book though, and I understand why others are.