ByWard Market restaurant Oz Kafe closes after failure to pay $38,000 to NCC

New ownership took over the York Street restaurant last year, but its lease with the National Capital Commission was recently terminated.

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Published Oct 16, 2024  •  Last updated 2 hours ago  •  3 minute read

Oz Kafe restaurant in the ByWard Market in Ottawa closed earlier this month. Photo by Jean Levac /Postmedia

Oz Kafe, a well-regarded ByWard Market restaurant with a 20-year history in Ottawa, has closed after failing to pay its landlord, the National Capital Commission, almost $40,000 owed.

Late last week, NCC strategic communications advisor Benoît Desjardins responded to questions from the Ottawa Citizen about Oz Kafe: “The lease is now terminated. The NCC intends to market the space at the earliest opportunity.”

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Desjardins added Wednesday: “After multiple attempts to find a solution, we unfortunately had to terminate the lease since the tenants stopped paying their lease.”

The restaurant at 10 York St. had not been open since early October. Two notices from the NCC were recently posted outside the restaurant. One letter dated Sept. 26, 2024 said that it owed the NCC $38,358.50 in rent, tax and other charges and had until Oct.10 to pay it. A second letter dated July 19, 2024 said that Oz Kafe owed the NCC $19,424.31 for  outstanding rent in May and June and that payment was due Aug. 2.

Oz’s owner, David Sharipov, did not reply to multiple emails requesting comment.

Last month at the Ottawa edition of Canada’s Great Kitchen Party, the regional competition that sends its winner to the Canadian Culinary Championship, Oz Kafe’s chef Kristine Hartling took part.

Chef Kristine Hartling of Oz Kafe at Canada’s Great Kitchen Party held at the Fairmont Chateau Laurier in Ottawa, Sept. 25, 2024. Photo by Jean Levac /Postmedia

She told the Ottawa Citizen last week via email that she had thought Oz’s sudden closure this month was temporary, adding that she too had not been able to reach the owner.

“This is ultimately due to a service staff shortage, but many factors have played into it,” Hartling wrote.

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This spring, Hartling bought her own restaurant, the Sandy Hill burger joint No Forks Given. “It’s the start of what’s to come. A big future. A major step towards my big dream becoming reality,” Hartling wrote in an Instagram post.

She told the Citizen that since taking over No Forks Given, she had slowly reduced her hours at Oz Kafe and “had intended to carry on there in a mostly administrative and creative capacity for the foreseeable future.

“I am not sure what my involvement will be following this closure,” she wrote.

The restaurant’s first owner and founder, Oz Balpinar, opened Oz Kafe in 2004 in a funky space on Elgin Street. It was known for its good food and warm welcome for restaurant-industry workers who made it a late-night haunt.

Balpinar closed her restaurant in 2016 and reopened at 10 York St. in the summer of 2017, following extensive renovations. She sold the business in August last year to Sharipov, who she said wanted to take over the restaurant, complete with its name and staff.

“I wanted to pass it on to somebody who was going to continue it, rather than turn it into a crappy nightclub,” Balpinar said. “I really wanted it to continue. I had great expectations of it going on and on.”

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She said all ByWard Market businesses have had it harder these days, with the historic neighbourhood’s high-profile crime and homelessness discouraging customers from frequenting it.

“Downtown has become heartbreakingly sad,” she said.

Earlier this year, two veteran George Street restaurants in NCC properties around the corner from Oz Kafe, namely the Courtyard Restaurant and Mamma Grazzi’s Kitchen, closed suddenly.

New businesses have replaced them. Beyond the Pale Brewing Company, the craft brewery in the City Centre complex, is to open a second location in the Courtyard’s space later this year. Dark Fork, Ottawa’s first dine-in-the-dark restaurant, recently opened at 25 George St., where Mamma Grazzi’s had been.

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