How this fruit stand took advantage of the Okanagan Rail Trail

Cyclists trying to get to the Kelowna Fruit Stand and Cafe from the Okanagan Rail Trail had worn a shortcut, so the business decided to embrace it and build a proper path.

Greet Gill is the produce manager at the Kelowna Fruit Stand and he said there’s a strong demand for interesting pitstops all along the rail trail.

“For the last few years we had a lot of people riding by on the rail trail and they would come up to us saying that this would be a really good idea if we could connect it. They would have a spot to stop and get some coffee,” Gill told iNFOnews.ca.

The business is close to the rail trail, and Gill said that makes it convenient for cyclists to stop in. Building a proper path just made it safer and more inviting.

Gill said everyone was on board right away, including the city and Friends of the Okanagan Rail Trail.

Since there’s demand and support from the city and the community, and more sections of the trail are getting built and improved, Gill hopes more businesses near the rail trail see it as an opportunity.

“They need places to stop and enjoy… the rail trail is such a beautiful place to bike, walk and go on runs,” he said. “It’s a great opportunity for us to bring in more traffic.”

The path comes as the city is working to complete a 3.2 kilometre stretch of the rail trail between the Kelowna airport and Lake Country, which would complete the seamless connection between Vernon and Coldstream, and downtown Kelowna.

“The potential is really, really amazing,” Gill said. “Now with e-bikes and things like that, people are just flying. We already got some customers… from the other side of the bridge for a coffee and ice cream.”

Janice Liebe is the president of the Trail of the Okanagans Society and she said ideally more businesses will do something similar as the Kelowna Fruit Stand.

“We see opportunities for wineries, for fruit stands, for restaurants. Connections to other parks, frankly, to the other trails,” Liebe told iNFOnews.ca.

The society is an organization that advocates for connecting all of the rail trail bike paths from Sicamous to Osoyoos.

“(The rail trail) goes directly by wineries and other things along the wine trail so there’s a big advantage to connecting communities creating places for people to commute by but also to enjoy all the amenities that are there,” Liebe said.

She said hopefully other businesses see the potential and support more trail expansion and improvement.

“Encourage them to support the trail and also to see it as an advantage to have the trail close to their businesses and connected to it,” she said.