We love our pizza, but could Morinville be ready for a bigger food future?

One of the great things about keeping a local directory is that you start to notice patterns—like just how much we, as a town, love our pizza (according to the numbers).

There are 29 restaurants and bars listed in the directory. Out of those, 7 have pizza right in their name. Add another 3 that are locally loved for it, and roughly 1 in 3 dining spots in Morinville are slinging pizzas.

That's not a problem, it's a personality trait.

If anything, it's a fun quirk. Maybe even a branding opportunity.

A Taste of Morinville: Pizza Edition, anyone? Picture it: pizza flight samples, dough-tossing contests, and a hotly debated “most controversial topping” showdown. There could be trophies for top-voted crust, sauce, etc. Really, it would’ve been the perfect companion to the Craft Beer Festival held at the MCCC earlier this year.

In fact, a similar festival has been a big hit in Bridgepoint, Connecticut since 2023 (learn more about it here).

But do we need more dining variety?

Now, do we need more dining variety in Morinville? That’s a bigger question. Restaurants are tough businesses, especially when you’re competing with the dining scene of a major city just 30–40 minutes away. But I will say this...

A story from back home

I grew up in a very small town in BC (Cawston & Keremeos — two towns of less than 2,000 people that sit side by side, share schools, and yet somehow maintain they are two towns and not one—but that's an aside).

Back then, there was not much going on there other than orchards and ranching. The only restaurants in town were your standard burger-and-fries cafes and there was one bar (you know the one—the seedy bar in the old hotel every small town in Canada has, or did before they started burning or falling down).

Fruit-growing was also a tough business. Okanagan farmers clashed with marketing boards, US packing houses dumped their excess fruit into the Canadian market, people were struggling to make a go of it.

Then someone discovered it was great wine grape country.

The ripple effect

It took a while (and some government incentives) for growers to change crops, but soon a healthy local wine industry started developing. Growth came first to the areas with more population and more complementary attractions, particularly around the lake towns: Kelowna, Penticton, Naramata, Osoyoos. But eventually, as startup costs rose in the big-name areas, new players pushed out to the edges —like Cawston and Keremeos.

Today, Cawston alone has at least ten wineries, three cideries, a distillery, a couple of trendy cafes, and one high-end farm-to-table restaurant—Row Fourteen—that draws visitors from across the region. It’s part of an organic farm with a cidery, café, and bed and breakfast as well.

How Morinville is similar

Now, Morinville doesn’t have a brand-new tourism boom like the wine industry in the Okanagan—but we do have something just as promising: location. We’re right on the edge of one of the fastest-growing cities in Canada. And what do people in cities love to do on weekends? Head out of town to find something interesting and unique that they don't find at home: like a farm-to-table dinner thoughtfully crafted from food within a 20km radius.

We've got the ingredients

Could something like that happen here? I think so. Within 15 minutes of Morinville, we have:

• several beef producers

• a cheese and butter operation

• a pork farm, a bison ranch, and an elk ranch

• two healthy-sized vegetable farms

• two haskap berry orchards

• two strawberry growers

• an apple orchard

• a flour and cereal producer

• a craft brewery

• a fruit winery (a non-grape fruit winery)

not to mention, for after dinner:

• a coffee roaster

• a certified chocolate-maker and chocolatier

That’s just off the top of my head. I can't help but think there must be a saskatoon grower neearby too.

So yes, an attractive farm-to-table restaurant here seems like a solid maybe. Morinville may not be a tourism-focused town, but we are very near a major source of customers, and startup costs here are still lower than in the city.

And the 'something else'

Also—and to me, this is important—the entire Edmonton region is sorely missing great places to eat and drink on the water. It doesn’t take much more than a healthy-sized pond and a few twinkly lights to create a magical summer patio, and Morinville has ponds everywhere.

Trail lights make the Fish and Game pond magical after dusk.

Could something like Row Fourteen work here?

Well, we’ve got the ingredients—literally. With our mix of farms, producers, and untapped charm, Morinville seems like it has what it takes to support a small-town culinary gem. We might not have beaches or big-budget tourism draws, but we’ve got ponds, pastures, population and potential.

In a town where pizza reigns supreme, who says we couldn’t add some upscale farm-to-table flavour to the mix?