Hicks on Biz: Recycling depot is an Edmonton business success story BY GRAHAM HICKS, EDMONTON SUN FIRST POSTED: FRIDAY, APRIL 17, 2015

Six or seven years ago, I interviewed Rajan Ahluwalia in the ramshackle recycling depot that was Greys Paper Recycling on Yellowhead Trail, listening with skepticism to his paper-making proposal. A recent immigrant, Ahluwalia had perfected a secret process to manufacture office-style paper, he said, from 100% waste office paper and worn-out cotton fibre, using no chemicals. What a dreamer, I said to myself, especially as he launched into a vision of a “small is beautiful” world that he was truly passionate about. Fast-forward. Son of a gun, Rajan, with his son Amit, has done it! The $26 million Greys Paper Recycling Industries plant at the Edmonton Waste Management Centre is built and churning out fresh, white 100% recycled paper. Currently, 85 workers on two shifts produce six to eight tonnes, or 13,200 to 17,600 pounds, of writing paper a day. That much paper is used daily by 8,800 to 11,700 Edmonton office workers. The current plant at the waste management centre has only been ... Read the rest of entry »

Hicks' Weekly Dish: Earls still going strong BY GRAHAM HICKS, EDMONTON SUN FIRST POSTED: TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 2015

Earls Tin Palace 11830 Jasper Ave 780 488 6582 earls.ca Mon/Tues: 11:30 a.m. to midnight Wed/Fri: 11:30 a.m. to 1 a.m. Sat: 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. Sun: 11 a.m. to midnight Food: 4 of 5 Suns Ambience: 3.5 of 5 Suns Dinner for two excluding drink and tip: Basic, $50; loaded, $80 As he dug into his rack of BBQ Back Ribs, my son-in-law nailed the secret of Earls Kitchen + Bar: “Mass production,” he said, “done to perfection.” This truly is an amazing chain, starting in Edmonton in 1982 and having since grown to 65 Earls across Canada with a couple in the USA. Earls Tin Palace at Jasper and 119th Street was the chain’s flagship when it first opened in 1986. Here we are, 30 years later, and Earls Tin Palace is still very much at the top of its game. Name another dining establishment (excluding fast-food) of such vintage that has managed to stay so relentlessly contemporary? This review is the result of two visits: On Friday we dined at Earls anonymously, with res ... Read the rest of entry »

Hicks on Biz: Edmonton's public transit is DOOMED! BY GRAHAM HICKS, EDMONTON SUN FIRST POSTED: FRIDAY, APRIL 10, 2015

There is delightful irony here. The City of Edmonton – and most prosperous cities of our size around the globe – are wedded to mass transit and have committed billions upon billions of tax-payer dollars to the same. It is heresy, punishable-by-death heresy, to suggest anything other than mass transit could solve current urban transportation woes. And yet these enlightened, progressive drivers of public policy may prove to be utterly wrong. Even more ironic, the alternatives staring us in the face are at the – gack! - Edmonton Motor Show in the Northlands’ Expo Centre through April 12. The motor show!  You know – that place disliked by all Edmonton city councillors and planners who put together the anti-car, all-out pro-public transit “The Way We Move” Transportation Master Plan in 2009.   Cars that, from the current city transportation planning point-of-view, are clogging up roadways, emitting pollution, causing traffic jams and, choke, bur ... Read the rest of entry »

Hicks' Weekly Dish: The Burger’s Priest is just another burger joint BY GRAHAM HICKS, EDMONTON SUN FIRST POSTED: TUESDAY, APRIL 07, 2015

The Burger’s Priest 10148 109 St. theburgerspriest.com Mon to Wed: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Thurs to Sat: 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Sun: noon to 8 p.m. Food: 3 of 5 Suns Ambience: 2.5 of 5 Suns Service: 3 of 5 Suns Costs: two dressed 'name' burgers and a side of fries: $24 The Burger’s Priest is a triumph of marketing over substance. Honest to goodness, folks, it’s just another burger joint, charging 30% more than the chains for what amounts to a good beef patty and not that much else. You walk in, it’s noisy and busy. You wait 10 minutes to order. You try to find seats in a very basic, crowded, fast-food eating area – all plastic chairs and arbourite tables. Fifteen minutes later, you walk over to the pick-up area and wait another five minutes before your name is called. You eat. You leave the fast-food place, well-located a few doors west of Ricky's All-Day Grill in the downtown shopping strip across the parking lot from the Save-On at Jasper and ... Read the rest of entry »

Hicks on Biz: Missteps make for interesting election BY GRAHAM HICKS, EDMONTON SUN FIRST POSTED: THURSDAY, APRIL 02, 2015

Missteps by the Jim Prentice government have suddenly made this a far more interesting provincial election than was anticipated -- if indeed it is called. "The tepid 2015/16 provincial budget -- a little cut here, a little cut there, maybe nobody will notice -- has hurt Premier Prentice's reputation and "brand". The electorate had expected boldness. We got timidity. Had the finance minister announced a 2% across-the-board spending cut, a 2% provincial sales tax and a 1% hike in corporate income taxes to make up for lost oil revenue, all hell would have broken loose. But the premier might have gained respect. "Ignoring the Alberta Elections Act, which unequivocally says, following the provincial election of April 23, 2012, that elections are to be held between March 1 and May 31 "in the fourth calendar year following the polling day of the most general election," i.e. 2016. Apparently it's all legal, but it shows a government more concerned with getting re-elected than following its own legislat ... Read the rest of entry »

Hicks' Weekly Dish: Bodega a true tapas experience BY GRAHAM HICKS, EDMONTON SUN FIRST POSTED: TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 2015

Bodega Tapas + Wine Bar at Sabor 10220 103 St. 780-757-1114 (Facebook page) Food: 4 of 5 Suns Ambience: 4 of 5 Suns Service: 4 of 5 Suns 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. weekdays, 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. Fri./Sat. 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Sundays (No reservations) Dinner for two, just food — basic $22, loaded $45 Tapas, claims Bodega Tapas Bar partner and chef Lino Olivera, started when an enterprising bartender to some king on some beach placed a slice of ham, or a “tapper” on top of the king’s goblet to keep the sand out. Obviously the king liked the ham as well as the wine and thus the great Spanish/Portuguese tradition of tapas — small dish snacks — began. A back story is always entertaining, especially as light conversation is a perfect accompaniment to tapas. A more mundane origin of tapas cites Spanish sherry drinkers using ham slices to keep fruit flies out of their drinks. We have neither sand nor fruit flies. Snow rarely drifts into our glasses. But t ... Read the rest of entry »

Hicks' Weekly Dish: Thumbs up for New York Bagel Cafe, thumbs down for Creperie BY GRAHAM HICKS, EDMONTON SUN FIRST POSTED: TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2015

The Creperie #111, 10220-103 St. (downstairs) 780-420-6656 thecreperie.com Food: 2.5 of 5 Suns Ambience: 4 of 5 Suns Service: 4 of 5 Suns Sat. to Mon. 4:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tues. to Thurs. 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Fri. 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Dinner for two, food only: basic, $40, loaded $100 *** The New York Bagel Café 8430 Gateway Blvd. 780-432-2003 Food: 4 of 5 Suns Ambience: 4 of 5 Suns Service: 3.5 of 5 Suns Tues. to Sat. 9 a.m. – 9:30 p.m. Sun./Mon. 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Brunch for two, food only: basic, $22 (shared main plate), loaded $60. “Value” is a subjective term. But let’s cut to the chase. Saturday brunch at the charming (and busy) New York Bagel Café in Old Strathcona: My wife and I paid $22 for a shared eggs benedict with lox (salmon), roast potatoes and fresh cut fruit, plus $4.50 per coffee. And it was excellent value. An early Valentine’s dinner last week, at the venerable and romanti ... Read the rest of entry »

Inspired silliness at the Mayfield Dinner Theatre - Graham Hicks' review of Don't Dress For Dinner

Don't Dress for Dinner Mayfield Dinner Theatre, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada through April 5, 2015 Tickets - including dinner - starting at $75 There's farce, and then there’s good farce. Thank goodness, Don’t Dress for Dinner at the Mayfield Dinner Theatre through April 15,  is good farce.  In fact, thanks to French playwright Marc Camoletti, director John Kirkpatrick and a fine farcical cast, Don’t Dress for Dinner is, in fact, excellent farce! Farce: “A comic dramatic work using buffoonery and horseplay and typically including crude characterization and ludicrously improbable situations.”  Farce is all about fun. It’s usually about silly affairs, mistaken identities and plots that have no pretense towards anything but fun, yet are marvellously constructed to maximize that fun. I won’t even try to describe anything that happens in Don’t Dress for Dinner – mainly because so much happens that by the time you leave th ... Read the rest of entry »

Hicks on Biz: Grim Jim Prentice's legacy coming into focus - BY GRAHAM HICKS, EDMONTON SUN FIRST POSTED: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2015

So now Alberta Premier Grim Jim Prentice is steeling us toward  a bona fide 9 per cent cut in the upcoming provincial budget (compared to last year). This is tough medicine to cope with the collapse in the price of crude oil, to adjust to an unexpected $7 billion loss in oil-related revenues. This is Ralph Klein territory. Except when then-finance minister Jim Dinning bought in austerity budgets starting in 1994, they faced a whopping provincial $22.7 billion debt.  Prentice and today’s finance minister Robin Campbell are clamping government spending to PREVENT any such buildup of provincial debt. Prentice’s desired legacy is already clear. He wants to be the Alberta premier that not only keeps this province out of debt, but leaves its finances far less vulnerable to future swings in oil/gas price and royalties. If Prentice does that, he will have achieved the near-impossible. But it has to be done … if we are to keep this marvelous standard of living, remain debt f ... Read the rest of entry »

Hicks' Weekly Dish: Solstice Seasonal Cuisine a winter delight - BY GRAHAM HICKS, EDMONTON SUN FIRST POSTED: TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2015

Solstice Seasonal Cuisine 10723 124 St. 780-488-4567 solsticefood.com 5 p.m. to 11 p.m., closed Sundays Food: 4 of 5 Suns Ambience: 4 of 5 Suns Service: 4.5 of 5 Suns Dinner for two, food only: basic, $70; loaded, $115 Graham Hicks 780-707-6379 graham.hicks@hicksbiz.com www.hicksbiz.com @hicksonsix It’s a classic story of all that’s right about opportunity in this town. Four 30-something young men work together for some years at Packrat Louie’s, the South Side icon tucked in beside The Fringe grounds. Chef Jan Trittenbach, sous chef Jamin Sharp, front-of-house manager Jon Elson and bartender Josh Meachem are all very good at what they do. (Trittenbach won the city’s Gold Medal Plates Competition in 2011). The entrepreneurial spirit struck them. Why not open their own restaurant, based on their ideas and their experience? Thus Solstice Seasonal Cuisine was born, opening, by design, on 2014’s Dec. 21 winter solstice. Solstice re ... Read the rest of entry »