8 ms·

The story of Thunder Bay’s socialist Finnish restaurant (2018)

38 points by nkurz 6y ago

helsinkiandrew 6y ago
Looks like the restaurant filed for bancruptcy in May. The new owner of the building may or may not be opening some kind of restaurant: https://www.tbnewswatch.com/local-news/finlandia-co-operative-looking-to-lease-hoito-restaurant-2858010 https://www.tbnewswatch.com/local-news/finlandia-co-operativ...
GolDDranks 6y ago
While surely not the case circa 1918, a common slang meaning for "hoito" in modern use is "one night stand". Of course, the word is also used in its original, standard meaning ("care"; also "handling", "management", i.e. "to care about something"), but I think that the founders would think twice before naming it so today.
proverbialbunny 6y ago
This reminds me of when my great grandfather would talk about socialism. I believe in the 1950s the terminology got corrupted, or maybe he was always using some off shoot version of the terminology. What the socialism he and many protested for back in the day was for unions. The idea was to give control to the workers, so that living standards could increase. And you know what? It worked. From this the US saw its best years. When workers get paid more, they buy more. It boosts the economy, strengthens it, and from that we all end up with a better life. Today 44% of US workers are low wage ($18,000 or less). Of this group the majority can not afford more than food, shelter, transportation, and clothing. This is not what a healthy economy looks like. Part of the challenge of paying people a living wage is land lords can and do up rent to match their income slowly over time. The free market is great when there is competition, but time and time again we see in markets where there is limited competition or limited resources, the market starts to fall down. So while socialism (ie unions and social services) at first seems to benefits us all, it does not benefit low income workers. Without some sort of regulation on the housing market, blindly upping minimum wage will lead to a slow increase in living expenses. Unionizing has shown to work and work well for middle class jobs, but if the job is a near minimum wage job, while unions do help, it's unfortunately a complex problem. Without some sort of regulation there will always be some group of people struggling to make ends meet.
- goodcanadian 6y ago
  Rent control is almost always counter-productive. Real estate is subject to the same laws of supply and demand as everything else. The only way to make housing more affordable is to increase the supply. In certain highly desirable areas, it is always going to be difficult to increase the supply enough. Generally speaking, however, more housing = cheaper housing. (Expanding rapid public transportation can also help by giving workers quick access to larger regions, and more housing options.) EDIT: Thanks to all for the good comments. I want to stress that I understand "just build more" (by which I really mean increase supply however you accomplish it) is often not a simple answer, but it is the ONLY strategy that has a hope of working to make housing more affordable.
  - kjakm 6y ago
    Supply and demand is too simplistic an approach for a lot of places when so many properties in major cities are purchased by foreign investors and left empty.
    - goodcanadian 6y ago
      Supply and demand still works. That is a confounding factor artificially increasing demand (or decreasing supply). There are lots of approaches to fight this, including banning foreign ownership, or just building so much housing that it doesn't matter (the foreign ownership problem may also go away in the latter case if it turns into a poor investment).
      - Jochim 6y ago
        Building housing isn't enough. People need to be able to get to work in a reasonable length of time, they generally need to be able to maintain prior relationships, have access to hobbies, shopping etc. that all tend to be further away from undeveloped land. That's also ignoring the problem of landlords using the excess capital extracted from rents to drive the price of housing further from the reach of the people actually interested in using it as a house. The higher prices are then used by landlords as a justification for raising rent, and this cycle then repeats.
xattt 6y ago
Former Lakehead University student chiming in: the loss of this restaurant cuts deep because of its emotional association with youth for a lot of my classmates. It was the place to go after a night of partying, for dates or just because. It was a place where the old guard mixed with the new. They had a scale at entrance and the shtick was to weigh your self before and after eating.
- abdullahkhalids 6y ago
  I visited Lakehead University a few years ago, and had the pleasure of having a couple of meals at this restaurant. Nice food, though it was fairly empty at lunch time. Places like these deserve to be kept alive.
timonoko 6y ago
I visited Canada's Finnish Socialist Paradise "Sointula" in 1991. The COOP had really good cigars and straw hats from Cuba and Swedish Mora-Puukkos from 1965. Weirdest thing was I re-remembered the aroma of Cuban "Che"-cigars from 1972 Yugoslavia. https://youtu.be/3TMziykDR0s https://youtu.be/3TMziykDR0s
- timonoko 6y ago
  They had also "Jäätelö"-bar (in the video). But this cultural icon seems to destroyed by Creepy American Hippies who now run the place and understand nothing of anything.

38 points by nkurz 6y ago

Looks like the restaurant filed for bancruptcy in May. The new owner of the building may or may not be opening some kind of restaurant: https://www.tbnewswatch.com/local-news/finlandia-co-operative-looking-to-lease-hoito-restaurant-2858010 https://www.tbnewswatch.com/local-news/finlandia-co-operativ...

GolDDranks 6y ago

While surely not the case circa 1918, a common slang meaning for "hoito" in modern use is "one night stand". Of course, the word is also used in its original, standard meaning ("care"; also "handling", "management", i.e. "to care about something"), but I think that the founders would think twice before naming it so today.

proverbialbunny 6y ago

This reminds me of when my great grandfather would talk about socialism. I believe in the 1950s the terminology got corrupted, or maybe he was always using some off shoot version of the terminology. What the socialism he and many protested for back in the day was for unions. The idea was to give control to the workers, so that living standards could increase. And you know what? It worked. From this the US saw its best years. When workers get paid more, they buy more. It boosts the economy, strengthens it, and from that we all end up with a better life. Today 44% of US workers are low wage ($18,000 or less). Of this group the majority can not afford more than food, shelter, transportation, and clothing. This is not what a healthy economy looks like. Part of the challenge of paying people a living wage is land lords can and do up rent to match their income slowly over time. The free market is great when there is competition, but time and time again we see in markets where there is limited competition or limited resources, the market starts to fall down. So while socialism (ie unions and social services) at first seems to benefits us all, it does not benefit low income workers. Without some sort of regulation on the housing market, blindly upping minimum wage will lead to a slow increase in living expenses. Unionizing has shown to work and work well for middle class jobs, but if the job is a near minimum wage job, while unions do help, it's unfortunately a complex problem. Without some sort of regulation there will always be some group of people struggling to make ends meet.

goodcanadian 6y ago
Rent control is almost always counter-productive. Real estate is subject to the same laws of supply and demand as everything else. The only way to make housing more affordable is to increase the supply. In certain highly desirable areas, it is always going to be difficult to increase the supply enough. Generally speaking, however, more housing = cheaper housing. (Expanding rapid public transportation can also help by giving workers quick access to larger regions, and more housing options.) EDIT: Thanks to all for the good comments. I want to stress that I understand "just build more" (by which I really mean increase supply however you accomplish it) is often not a simple answer, but it is the ONLY strategy that has a hope of working to make housing more affordable.
- kjakm 6y ago
  Supply and demand is too simplistic an approach for a lot of places when so many properties in major cities are purchased by foreign investors and left empty.
  - goodcanadian 6y ago
    Supply and demand still works. That is a confounding factor artificially increasing demand (or decreasing supply). There are lots of approaches to fight this, including banning foreign ownership, or just building so much housing that it doesn't matter (the foreign ownership problem may also go away in the latter case if it turns into a poor investment).
    - Jochim 6y ago
      Building housing isn't enough. People need to be able to get to work in a reasonable length of time, they generally need to be able to maintain prior relationships, have access to hobbies, shopping etc. that all tend to be further away from undeveloped land. That's also ignoring the problem of landlords using the excess capital extracted from rents to drive the price of housing further from the reach of the people actually interested in using it as a house. The higher prices are then used by landlords as a justification for raising rent, and this cycle then repeats.

xattt 6y ago

Former Lakehead University student chiming in: the loss of this restaurant cuts deep because of its emotional association with youth for a lot of my classmates. It was the place to go after a night of partying, for dates or just because. It was a place where the old guard mixed with the new. They had a scale at entrance and the shtick was to weigh your self before and after eating.

abdullahkhalids 6y ago
I visited Lakehead University a few years ago, and had the pleasure of having a couple of meals at this restaurant. Nice food, though it was fairly empty at lunch time. Places like these deserve to be kept alive.

timonoko 6y ago

I visited Canada's Finnish Socialist Paradise "Sointula" in 1991. The COOP had really good cigars and straw hats from Cuba and Swedish Mora-Puukkos from 1965. Weirdest thing was I re-remembered the aroma of Cuban "Che"-cigars from 1972 Yugoslavia. https://youtu.be/3TMziykDR0s https://youtu.be/3TMziykDR0s

timonoko 6y ago
They had also "Jäätelö"-bar (in the video). But this cultural icon seems to destroyed by Creepy American Hippies who now run the place and understand nothing of anything.