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He questions whether city staff had the right expertise. “There’s nobody on there with any hospitality experience. To me, they’re not qualified to make that decision.”

Roger Jevne, branch manager for community and recreation facilities, defends the decision. “We’re confident we’re going to have good quality food service. We really set that out as one of the primary goals at the start, to get good fresh, healthy foods as a choice in all of our facilities. We didn’t want to have prepackaged sandwiches you could buy at the convenience stores.”

The city had no choice but to tender the contracts for these facilities, Jevne said. “It’s our obligation. We’re awarding public contracts, so we can’t just pick and chose when we want to tender and when we don’t.”

Ward 6 Coun. Scott McKeen was upset when he heard about the decision, but when he dug into the matter, he found the city had followed its rules and processes in selecting Civeo.

McKeen says he can’t speak to the quality of food that Civeo will offer: “We’ve all been in those places where you get the standardized hot dog and hamburger and pizza and it’s really disappointing. I hope that isn’t the case for the next three years. But there’s a lost opportunity to help grow our local food scene.”

City staff and Civeo, which has its Canadian headquarters in Edmonton, are still negotiating a final deal. Civeo serves 50,000 meals a day in Canada and operates a commercial catering business, Red Table, built up by restaurant professionals from the hotel and restaurant industry, says Regan Nielsen, manger of corporate development and investor relations.

I’m left with three takeaways here.

First, that the pressure is on Civeo to provide excellent food, as Dogwood set the bar high.

Two, things certainly weren’t broken at the Dogwood Cafe, so I’m not sure if appropriate weight was given to keeping a much-loved restaurant operating at Victoria.

And, three, that for a select few city-run locations, such as touristy river valley restaurant locations, the city needs to put a high priority on having an excellent and unique dining experience. This should be the main focus the next time the Victoria contract comes up.

dstaples@postmedia.com