Merivale Road Food Map 2025

Reading Time: 5 minutes

This week I updated the Merivale Road Food map for 2025. If you are stuck in traffic on Merivale and you’re killing time staring at the parking lots and rows of beige malls, nothing ever seems to change, but subtle changes do happen. Last year several food outlets closed, but others opened and even in places that had been sitting empty. We also got three new grocery stores on Merivale.

15 minute neighbourhood

an map in rred and link colours saying Food on Merivale 2025. It shows a street map of Merivale road with buildings accentuated in yellow. About just under 100 dots show the location of the many restaurants and other food outlets. Two dotted green lines show bicycle routes just east and west of Merivale Road. Text gives a bit more explanation.

As weird as it may sound, Merivale Road is kind of a 15 minute neighbourhood, give or take a few minutes. You’ll find food, dentists, cleaners, a library, carpets, pianos, office supplies, a sewing machine hospital, lawyers, gas stations, churches. You name it and its there. I do most of the groceries by bike via the back roads and never, ever need to bike on Merivale.

But let’s see what changed this year in the third installment of the Merivale Food Map. The choice is slightly arbitrary and has a focus on smaller and/or ethnic food businesses. Every one knows where the Walmart and the Metro are, so I am not going to bother with those giants. But I do mention small independent grocery stores.

Even more grocery stores on Merivale

Nicastro’s place has been sitting empty last year, but fortunately a new food market with a Middle East touch, but still catering to all tastes moved in: Tayba Mart. The former Swiss Chalet location has been sitting empty too, but here too a new business settled in: Healthy Planet with isles and isles of organic groceries. It is odd to stand in a store and you don’t recognize a single brand. Nearby, in the former Future Shop and later Mel Lastman’s Bad Boy store (did anyone ever go there?) you can now find Green Fresh, a large Asian food market.

A building with an interior of beige stucco and tiles. the entrance has a welcome sign saying 'Welcome". a sign on the wall reads Green Fresh supermarket

An omission in previous updates was Kardish, a health food groceries store (where I buy my yogurt starter), so I have added that now. You can find them in the mall next to HomeSense and Metro.

El Gusto del Mondo in the Loblaws building unexpectedly closed a while ago and the location was sitting empty, but it looks like Gwalia Sweets will open any day now. Like Safran at Emerald Plaza, this is a chain from India setting up shop in Ottawa. The name is on the building already.

Where is Ottawa Shawarma?

Princess Shawarma has been replaced by Ottawa Shawarma (on Clyde) and got a facelift. Apparently, from what I read in a review, the staff from Carling Shawarma Palace “bailed out” after Shawarma Palace bought Carling Shawarma Palace and started their own place on Clyde, across from Denny’s.

In the same building as Denny’s was ‘Yes Mamma Kitchen’ since last year, but it has moved out already and their place has been taken over by East Indian food place Jay Bhavani. This is a new name in Ottawa, but there are already seven Jay Bhavani places in southern Ontario and the GTA and one in Montreal.

Sadly Joe’s Pizza, roughly across the Calvinist church, burned down this summer, and while the building has been fixed up again, no one has moved in yet.

Greek food on Merivale

World Burger is still on the side of the building of Merivale Place, but appears to rebrand itself as The Happy Greek. As you can see in the image underneath the Happy Greek name, there is still a World Burger too (“available inside/on line”). Reading the comments on Google, the name change is a bit confusing, but I am sure the management has their reasons.

A mall with a restaurant seen from the outside called the Happy Greek

A similar name change appears to happen at Muncheese, which is now called The Greek Flame & Pizza, but still has Muncheese on the storefront banner. You can find then across from the Merivale Fish Market in a small strip mall. People complain about the lack of parking, but there is a large free parking lot behind the mall.

A restaurant seen from the outside called the Greek Flame and Pizza on Merivale Road

Tea is here to stay

Chatime in the Emerald Plaza mall near the library is now Tealive. Sip Tea is now called Bliss Tea. You can find them in the mall with the Barley Mow on the corner with Capilano.

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Few empty places

Late December, Karen and I walked (10,800 steps/7.1 km) from home the entire stretch of Merivale Road between Emerald Plaza and Viewmount, mostly along the store fronts, away from the traffic. That is a challenge. We noticed very few empty stores, which is encouraging. In the part of Emerald Plaza facing the road that used to have Asian buffet Yang Ming, a new restaurant was supposed to open in 2023, but the location is still sitting empty, already since 2018 now.

A bicycle stopped before a short unplowed section of pathway — I have been asking for clearing these 6-7 meters of pathway to the library for several years but the city has not acted. Imagine the frustration if you are a wheelchair user or a less than stable senior going to the Emerald Plaza library that is just around the corner. No shortage of signs though

Part of the Target store is still sitting empty too and the south end ground floor of 1580 Merivale (the mall with Baskin & Robbins) is still empty from what I could see from a bit of a distance. We stopped for coffee at the uber hip DAO cafe, where Karen attempted to eat a buttery croissant with Nutella, with mixed success.

A side walk blocked by a snowbank at an intersection

Make no mistake, Merivale road is a terribly ugly place where cars rule supreme and walking is not encouraged, but I hear there are plans to write a new secondary plan, which will transform the area eventually. Clearing the sidewalks and maintaining the public space doesn’t have to wait for a fancy new plan though.

Trashed is laying around a post of a bus stop. They are mostly discarded drink containers such as Tim Hortons carton cups and plastic lits

Remember you are saving on the GST in the restaurants until February 15, 2025, so the menu price is the actual price you are paying for your food. Which is what it should always be anyway.

You can download the map in PDF here: 2025 Merivale Road food map

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