38 N ik W e s t
B C B U S I N E S S . C A
A P R I L / M AY 2 0 2 5
BEST
CITIES
FOR WORK
THE
The other half of the train station had
been a pub for a decade. When its owners
decided to close the doors in 2022, Fer-
ris and Symonds launched Black Rabbit
Kitchen, a restaurant and cocktail bar, to
cater to the nighttime crowd. The dream
of the space being a community hub has
now been completely realized—an event
space above Black Rabbit holds live music,
comedy and open-mic poetry. On week-
ends, Black Rabbit typically sees over 150
customers a night.
"In order for us to have an exciting,
vibrant downtown and city, it takes people
just doing things," says Ferris, who is the
director of the board of the Old City Quar-
ter Association. "I think we can get compla-
cent in thinking there's nothing going on
in Nanaimo, but if you actually take a step
back and look at some of the things people
are doing, there's a lot of cool stuff to do."
ADULTS IN THE ROOM
Everyone in the Lower Mainland has a
story about friends or family members
finding solace on an island, but often
the destination in question is Victoria or
something smaller like Bowen or Salt
Spring. Nanaimo, however, is seemingly
ready for its close-up: no city in the top
10 rose more spots in our Most Resilient
Cities rankings (p.23) than Nanaimo, which
now sits at No. 10. Among all of the cities
we studied, it had the second-biggest rise
overall. By our metrics, Nanaimo saw
particularly sizeable jumps in resident
sense of belonging and housing starts.
Take a tour around the city and you'll
find that it's chock full of residents who are
optimistic about its future—perhaps none
more so than the mayor himself, Leonard
Krog. When I go up the hill toward city hall
to meet Krog on a frosty, foggy morning,
he's waiting for me in an office that's dot-
ted with maps, relics and figurines. Most
things in the office—other than some Last of
Us merch from when the HBO show filmed
in Nanaimo last year—seem older than the
septuagenarian Krog himself.
Krog is originally from Coombs but
started a law practice in Nanaimo in the
early '80s. He was first elected an MLA in
1991 and was re-elected five times before
he resigned in 2018 to run for mayor of
Nanaimo, a position he won again in 2022.
"We spent a day in
Nanaimo and fell in love.
It was so sleepy and quiet
but it felt like it was on the
verge of something."
-Amy Ferris,
co-owner of White Rabbit and Black
Rabbit
BACK ON TRACK
A former train station
in Nanaimo's Old City
Quarter is the home
of both White Rabbit
Coffee Co. and Black
Rabbit Kitchen—
visitors can go from a
daytime destination to
buzzy nightlife just by
popping next door
