The Paddlewheel Restaurant

The Paddlewheel Restaurant on the 6th floor of the Bay department store was a prime destination for generations. Whether strolling down Portage Avenue or shopping in downtown Winnipeg, it was a popular spot for Manitobans.

Let's take a brief tour of downtown Winnipeg during the late 1800s and early 1900s to see the birth of retail culture in the heart of the city.

This Paddlewheel Restaurant advertisement was published in the Winnipeg Free Press on 19 November 1954; the restaurant had opened a month earlier. The first point of interest is the marketing of the Paddlewheel as a "noonday vacation" destination. This implies that the establishment wanted to establish itself as a valuable and integral part of daily life. 

The Paddlewheel also marketed itself as a destination where visitors could indulge in nostalgia, observing the "colourful atmosphere of the old paddle steamer days on the Red River. It's quite different, in a charming old-world way." Thus, the Paddlewheel was a happening place, where patrons were invited into the past to indulge in "the finest food." Advertising for the Paddlewheel was also embedded with gendered descriptions of space and place that served to reinforce gender dynamics and separations along these lines. ¹⁴  

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 ¹⁴  For histories of the role of gender in department stores, see Geoffrey Crossick and Serge Jaumain, Cathedrals of Consumption : The European Department Store, 1850-1939 (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 1999); Lise Sanders, Consuming Fantasies : Labor, Leisure, and the London Shopgirl, 1880-1920 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2006); Emily Remus, A Shoppers' Paradise : How the Ladies of Chicago Claimed Power and Pleasure in the New Downtown (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2019). 

These two details from a two-page newspaper advertisement of the opening of the Paddlewheel demonstrate the gendered nature of the department store restaurant. Our first stop on the tour of the Paddlewheel is the Men's Saloon. The first point of emphasis is that the Saloon is fashioned similarly to a Captain's cabin, a predominantly male profession. Therefore, it marketed itself as an environment where men could feel welcome and at ease. 

The line "no ladies, please, except on Saturday's" is telling also, as this environment was marketed specifically as a place for men to go and be amongst other men. This is very much reflective of this time, as restaurant culture was a male dominated domain, aside from the occasional escorted woman.  ¹⁵ 

Women were not excluded from the Paddlewheel though. They were invited to indulge in the Paddlewheel's many delicacies in the "Crinoline Court." As the name implies, this was an exclusively female environment, which demonstrates the gendered segregation in the restaurant industry, even within the same establishment. 

Much of the language plays on feminine stereotypes, including "frills, flowers and all the dainty trimmings for milady" which the advertisers assume women want as they dine out. Furthermore, it is assumed that women visiting the Crinoline Court would do so alone, or with their friends, all of whom are female in this photo. 

Urban design scholar Jessica Sewell's examination of gender in public spaces asserted that "tables for ladies in lunchrooms and the newly invented cafeteria served working women and shoppers alike in modern spaces free from liquor and the tradition of masculine patronage." ¹⁶  Thus, the creation of a Crinoline Court in the Paddlewheel Restaurant served as an escape from the male-dominated world of restaurant culture, while concurrently reinforcing this aspect of restaurant culture. 

The decoration of the Crinoline Court also represented tradition, as "tearooms in department stores were usually located on an upper floor, far from the bustle of the street and were often decorated with a garden theme." ¹⁷  Thus, the entirety of the Paddlewheel was well thought out to ensure that it would appear inviting to its female guests.

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 ¹⁵   Jessica E. Sewell, "Dining Out," in Women and the Everyday City: Public Space in San Francisco, 1890-191 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011), 67.

 ¹⁶  Sewell, 67-8. 

 ¹⁷  Sewell, 71. 

Social spaces like salons, shops, and (to an extent) the home served to reinforce gender, class, and racial boundaries which distinguished groups from one another and created fissures within the social landscape of society. ¹⁸  The places people inhabited and were permitted to inhabit reinforced gender roles. In some cases, these frameworks were unsatisfactory, and women especially found new roles for themselves in advocating for a new social order.  

Throughout the 20th century women started becoming more entrenched in societal culture and were no longer relegated to the realm of the home. For example, many became involved in activist movements, and desired social mobility for themselves outside of the one which redefined "their gender, class, and political identity in the early 1900s." ¹⁹  

Department stores also served to create a new social order surrounding gender hierarchies and gender roles in the 20th century. The department store served to "draw women into the public sphere, serving as new social centers, and introducing women's lavatories and women's clubs, all of which weakened previous paradigms of women as deeply religious, dependent and resigned to the home." ²⁰  

Scholar Julia Leyda referenced a term-imaginative geography, defined by geographer Felix Driver as "representations of place, space and landscape that structure people's understandings of the world, and in turn help shape their actions." ²¹  Thus, spaces like the Paddlewheel Restaurant were not just physical spaces, but became a lens people looked through to comprehend what was going on in the world around them. This is an important concept because it creates a vacuum effect where individuals may begin to see themselves isolated from, as opposed to connected to, those who are different from them. The culture of the Paddlewheel then began to "other" itself by making itself a part of Winnipeg, while also being apart from the rest of Winnipeg within its walls. 

This idea helps to distinguish the bourgeoisie from the rest of society, and the establishment of restaurant culture is a "phenomenon of the nineteenth century and corresponds to the dominance of the bourgeoisie." ²²  Members of the aristocracy did not need a venue through which to assert their superiority, but the middle class did, and "elegant restaurants were embraced by members of the commercial and professional classes" to be seen as prestigious individuals. ²³  

When examining restaurant culture during the time of the Paddlewheel Restaurant, it is also important to acknowledge that there was an increase in disposable income during this time for members of the middle and upper classes that allowed them to indulge in outings to such establishments. Lance Roberts' study on social trends in Canada from the 1960s to the 2000s found that there was a "major reduction in the budgetary coefficient for food." ²⁴  This is significant as this portion of the budget is used as a measure for the standard of living and "is strongly associated with disposable income." ²⁵  Therefore, if individuals were receiving a higher income and were able to afford the necessities of life with greater ease, they could afford to eat at places like the Paddlewheel. 

However, even though the Paddlewheel was accessible to more people, it still maintained its upper-class allure with the presence of the Crinoline Court and Gentlemen's Saloon. 

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 ¹⁸  Julia Leyda, "Space, Class, City: Imagined Geographies of Maud Martha," in American Mobilities: Geographies of Class, Race, and Gender in US Culture, 173-91. American Cultural Studies volume 14, 174 

 ¹⁹  Virginia D'Antonio, "From Tupperware to Scentsy: The gendered culture of women and direct sales," Sociology Compass 13 (2019), 1.

 ²⁰  D’Antonio, 1. 

 ²¹  Leyda, 175. 

 ²²  Paul Freedman, "Women and Restaurants in the Nineteenth-Century United States," Journal of Social History 48, no.1 (Fall 2014), 4. 

 ²³  Freedman, 4. 

 ²⁴  Lance W. Roberts, "Market Goods and Services," in Recent Social Trends in Canada, 1960-2000 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2005), 481.

 ²⁵  Roberts, 481. 

The Paddlewheel Restaurant served two purposes: providing a destination for men to go throughout the day and partake in enlightening conversations with their friends, and providing light refreshments and snacks for women to refuel during a day of shopping at the Bay department store. Jessica Sewell discusses that "hotel dining rooms, department store lunchrooms, and tearooms functioned in large part as a convenience for well-to-do women." ²⁶  Women were not only experiencing the convenience of obtaining refreshments and desserts at the same place where they shopped. They also were able to demonstrate their privilege as members of the middle and upper classes. 

The food offered in such establishments took the genders of their clientele into account. The Paddlewheel offered hot meals for men on lunchtime breaks from their downtown offices or for informal lunch meetings with colleagues or friends. Women were assumed to be attracted to confections like desserts and lighter fare that would satisfy an appetite whilst shopping but not be too filling. 

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 ²⁶  Sewell, 73. 

By the 1960s, the rise of the suburbs and the decline of Winnipeg's downtown core as a shopping attraction meant that the Paddlewheel needed to rebrand to keep itself afloat. 

The Paddlewheel asserted itself as an institution that was still relevant in people's social lives, even if The Bay itself wasn't relevant for their consumer lives. Advertisements sought to convince consumers that the Paddlewheel was still relevant and worthy of their patronage.

The Paddlewheel added events to their schedule intended to draw young children and their families into the establishment. Some examples of these are Meet and Greets with Santa, Halloween contests, and theatre productions.

The early 1990s were the beginning of the end for both the Paddlewheel and the downtown Bay department store. Both establishments failed to adapt and reinvent themselves to avoid succumbing to the pressures caused by the rise of retail outside of the downtown core. 

The Paddlewheel continued to lose its relevancy in Winnipeg social culture as department stores were no longer as alluring as they once were and had been eclipsed by suburban shopping centres like Polo Park and St. Vital. 

Ultimately, the Paddlewheel failed to meet these many challenges and it closed in January 2013. Not even nostalgia could save it. The restaurant closed, its fixtures intact, a relic of the heyday of department store dining.

But new life is being breathed back into this institution. In April 2022, the Hudson's Bay Company gave its flagship downtown Winnipeg department store to the Southern Chiefs' Organization. ²⁷  Wehwehneh Bahgahkinahgohn ("it is visible") will include affordable housing, assisted living for Elders, a childcare facility, a museum and art gallery, a healing centre, a rooftop garden, and two restaurants. ²⁸ 

One of the two restaurants will focus on Indigenous cuisine...

...The other will be the Paddlewheel.

No longer a gendered element of Winnipeg's downtown social scene, the new Paddlewheel will be a revitalized space owned and operated by the Anishinaabe and Dakota peoples that the Hudson's Bay Company had dispossessed centuries ago.

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 ²⁷  Bartley Kives and Sheila North, "  Southern Chiefs plan $130M redevelopment of the Bay as symbol of reconciliation ," CBC News Manitoba (21 April 2022).

 ²⁸  Southern Chiefs' Organization, " A Bold Vision for a New Future ."

Butterfield, David and Maureen Devanik Butterfield. If Walls Could Talk: Manitoba's Best Buildings Explored and Explained. Winnipeg: Great Plains Publications, 2000.

City of Winnipeg. "54 Arthur Street, Robinson, Little & Company Building." (Winnipeg: Historical Buildings Committee, May 2007).

Crossick, Geoffrey and Serge Jaumain. Cathedrals of Consumption : The European Department Store, 1850-1939. Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 1999.

D’Antonio, Virginia. “"From Tupperware to Scentsy: The gendered culture of women and direct sales.” Sociology Compass 13 (2019): 1-11.

Freedman, Paul. "Women and Restaurants in the Nineteenth-Century United States," Journal of Social History 48, no.1 (Fall 2014): 1-19.

Gordon Goldsborough, "  Historic Sites of Manitoba: Robinson, Little and Company Building (54 Arthur Street, Winnipeg)  ," Manitoba Historical Society.

Gordon Goldsborough, "  Historic Sites of Manitoba: Peck Building (33 Princess Street, Winnipeg)  ," Manitoba Historical Society.

Gordon Goldsborough, "  Historic Sites of Manitoba: YMCA Building/Birks Building (276 Portage Avenue, Winnipeg)  , Manitoba Historical Society.

Kives, Bartley and Sheila North. " Southern Chiefs plan $130M redevelopment of the Bay as symbol of reconciliation ." CBC News Manitoba (21 April 2022).

Leyda, Julia. "Space, Class, City: Imagined Geographies of Maud Martha.” In American Mobilities: Geographies of Class, Race, and Gender in US Culture, 173-91. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2016.

Remus, Emily. Shoppers' Paradise : How the Ladies of Chicago Claimed Power and Pleasure in the New Downtown. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2019.

Roberts, Lance W. "Market Goods and Services.” In Recent Social Trends in Canada, 1960-2000, 481-7. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2005.

Sanders, Lise. Consuming Fantasies : Labor, Leisure, and the London Shopgirl, 1880-1920. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2006.

Sewell, Jessica E. "Dining Out.” In Women and the Everyday City: Public Space in San Francisco, 1890-1915, 67-94. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011.

Southern Chiefs' Organization, "  A Bold Vision for a New Future  ."

Winnipeg Architecture Foundation, "  Eaton's Building (Demolished)  ."