841 days, 13 hours and 39 minutes from devastation to celebration

It’s been 841 days, 13 hours, and 39 minutes from the time the alarms went off and a fire took down McMunn and Yates in Steinbach, until Monday, March 6, 2023, when their doors opened for business once again.

Mcmunn and Yates store manager, Corwin Penner says, “It’s been a long haul, but we are here. It’s so great to see people coming back into our store.”

Exterior of the old entrance of McMunn and Yates during the fire of 2020.

The devastating fire of November 14, 2020, drew crowds of people, but these days for a different reason. McMunn and Yates decided to completely demolish the front of the store keeping the warehouse and rebuilding from the ground up. Though the process may have taken longer than some had hoped, these days Penner is seeing a lot of positive energy from staff and customers.

“We’re just excited to be open again. We’ve had so much support from everybody. From all the staff that helped put this together, to the people in the community who are just excited for us to open for the past couple of years. They’ve been looking forward to this day and now that it’s finally here, it’s an indescribable feeling.

“I mean, look at this place! It’s just got everything, a lot more than we ever had before. So, it’s really exciting to be able to service our community again in this capacity.”

Penner is glad to be able to provide to the retail customers again, “rather than operating in a warehouse. Just to be able to operate out of an actual store for a change.”