The Hoito restaurant will open its second and more permanent location inside the Goods and Co. Market today.
Paula Haapanen, past president of the Finlandia Co-operative of Thunder Bay, said they are still holding out for a brick-and-mortar building they can call their own, but for now, this will be home.
“We’ve been going back and forth with Goods and Co. for a little while about possibly opening up a second location,” said Haapanen, adding that they supported the Hoito with a fundraiser on Mother’s Day in 2025.
“That was like a first step into seeing how our collaboration would work as we were on a pathway to develop the operations of the restaurant.”
The Hoito has been providing its menu items at the Thunder Bay Country Market twice a week.
“We love being at the country market, but it’s only two days a week,” she said. “We’re hopeful that the future will see us in a brick and mortar, but an in-between step was necessary, and we felt that Goods and Co. Market could provide that for us.”
Haapanen said they have access to a larger commercial kitchen at Goods and Co. that will enable them to make more menu items that are some of the traditional favourites from their original menu.
“They are also open more days and more hours, so all things considered, we thought it was a good next step,” Haapanen said.
She added that they are happy to become part of the growing waterfront-area food scene, which helps feed Thunder Bay’s tourism industry. There’s no better place to market the Hoito’s world-acclaimed Finnish pancakes.
“We’re also getting closer and closer to the original location,” she said.
Haapanen says everyone has a Hoito experience.
“It’s good to be able to try and create an opportunity for them to make new Hoito memories and new experiences and that’s one of the reasons it’s good to be back on the scene,” she said. “Secondly, the objective of the Finlandia Co-operative of Thunder Bay is to provide these good home-cooked meals at a reasonable price, as it always has been. But also, we’re a non-profit co-operative at the moment, and the idea is also to show how this type of business model can be successful and can serve in a challenging industry like the restaurant business.
She added that it can also be a wonderful platform and springboard to do other things for the Finnish community, for the neighbourhood they find themselves in, and for other social enterprises and co-operatives that are starting up.
“There’s that socio-economic development aspect as well. Being in a place that has more traffic and more visibility will actually help us boost our bottom line so that we can move it to the next level, which is the brick and mortar restaurant,” she said.
The co-operative remains hopeful that the original site on Bay and Algoma streets will still be developed.
