Fusion Kitchen Owners Left Waiting as Enbridge Delays Stall Downtown Oshawa Business
Downtown Oshawa's long-promised “revitalization” has hit another wall, and this time, the cost is being paid directly by a young family trying to open a small business in one of the city's most historic buildings.
Fusion Kitchen, set to open inside the Oshawa House property on King & Centre, has been forced to delay its grand opening for months because Enbridge Gas has repeatedly pushed back installation of the building's long-overdue gas line. The owners say they have done everything required of them.
The only thing they cannot do is force Enbridge to show up.
“We reached out in April,” said co-owner Jaylen, who has spent the past year renovating the formerly vacant café into a fully functional restaurant. “First, they told us mid-June. Then July. Then August. Then end of September. Then October. Then November. Now we're being told December. The date keeps getting pushed back.”
While private utility companies face no meaningful accountability, real people are feeling the consequences.
“Yes, we're losing money,” Jaylen said bluntly. “We're paying rent on the restaurant, and we're paying rent at home. We saved for a year or two just to get this place. And now we can't open because we’re waiting for the gas line. That's the simple truth.”
Inside, the restaurant is virtually complete: freshly installed furniture, fully renovated washrooms, a host station, new equipment, and a menu ready to go. Jaylen, a trained chef who has worked in multiple restaurants across the GTA, even shared his signature vegetarian dish—a slow-cooked pepper, garlic, onion and tomato base served with pasta.
“I've served it in other places I’ve worked,” he said. “People love it.”
The only ingredient missing is the one thing Fusion Kitchen cannot control: gas installation.
“It's frustrating,” Jaylen said. “We've done everything right. We're just stuck waiting.”
The unit that formerly housed Café Oshawa House came with its own set of problems—including live electrical wires left behind by a previous contractor—but the owners tackled the repairs themselves. What they can't fix is the bureaucratic bottleneck standing between them and opening day.
“If I could go back, maybe I'd pick a different building,” Jaylen admitted. “I love this spot. There's great foot traffic. But downtown Oshawa… it's a double-edged sword. The stigma, the drug issues, people avoiding the area—it makes it harder for any business to survive.”
He isn't wrong. Oshawa's downtown has seen a wave of closures over the past three years, and many small businesses cite the same problems: slow approvals, inconsistent communication from government-adjacent bodies, and a lack of basic accountability. Enbridge did not reply to our request for comment.
Despite these challenges, Fusion Kitchen still plans a large grand-opening celebration once Enbridge finally completes its part of the work. “We're going to have a big event outside,” Jaylen said. “Food on the street, samples for people driving or walking by. We want to be part of this community.”
What this case exposes is the exact reason working people across Ontario are losing faith in the system.
Families who take risks, invest their savings, clean up neglected, historic buildings, and try to build something are forced to wait endlessly for a publicly-funded utility to “maybe” show up.
Meanwhile, politicians talk nonstop about downtown renewal while ignoring the red tape and unresponsive agencies suffocating entrepreneurs on the ground.
Fusion Kitchen could be open today—employing people, attracting customers, and contributing to local economic activity. Instead, it sits ready but idle, another victim of Ontario's broken approval processes and institutional neglect.
Downtown Oshawa doesn't need more slogans.
It needs accountability.
It needs reliability.
It needs government and utilities that stop punishing the very people trying to rebuild the community.
Fusion Kitchen will open, Eventually. But they shouldn't have had to fight this hard.
