Railside Brewing has dozens of bike slots for cyclists pouring in from the Okanagan Rail Trail
'No brainer' decisions are paying off for businesses catering to the Okanagan Rail Trail. Two new businesses – a craft brewery and craft coffee shop – took a chance in 2023 on locating next to the Okanagan Rail Trail near its Kelowna end. They both saw the huge potential of capitalizing on heavy Rail Trail traffic.
“It’s been amazing,” one owner said. “We didn’t put a whole lot of marketing out there, we just wanted it to kind of trickle through. For the most part, everyone is walking up or biking up or scootering up. It’s so exciting to see. They come up with their dog or they come up with their stroller. People are going out of their way coming off the Rail Trail to come in.”
For them, people coming by foot or bike rather than car suits their environmental outlook.
This demonstrates the economic potential for entrepreneurs along the Island Corridor when it becomes a trail.