New restaurants coming to Lake City Casino

Lake City Casino is currently under construction to add a new MATCH Eatery & Public House as well as The Buffet to the existing site.

Gateway Casinos & Entertainment announced the upgrade on Thursday.

The project is expected to bring in $3.6 million to the Kelowna economy.

"Given our continued investment in the local Kelowna economy and our commitment to improving the customer experience through our dining and entertainment brands, we look forward to adding these new restaurants to Lake City Casino Kelowna," stated Tony Santo, CEO of Gateway.

The second restaurant, The Buffet provides a more casual dining atmosphere.

"It's great to see Gateway's continued investment in one of Kelowna's prime entertainment venues, and the new jobs this expansion will create are always welcome," stated Mayor Colin Basran.

The Buffet will replace the existing Grove Bistro outlet and the MATCH restaurant, which will seat 132 people, will take over the existing Gateway 21 space. The casino floor is also being renovated.

According to Gateway's director of public relations, Tanya Gabara, construction just started this week.

Kelowna's Lake City Casino is one of four Gateway brand locations in the Thompson-Okanagan.

Other locations include Vernon, Penticton and Kamloops.

Of the four, Penticton and Kamloops are said to be the biggest sites in the region - each outfitted with a MATCH Eatery.

"Kelowna is one of our smaller properties," said Gabara. "Kelowna is an older property so we're looking to refresh it obviously within its current walls."

Since there aren't expansion opportunities within the hotel, Gateway felt that adding food and beverage options was a great way to update the Kelowna location.

In order to expand, Lake City Casino would have to move to a different location outside the hotel.

For now, however, Gabara said the downtown location is perfect as it's busy and nearby other amenities.

The new eateries are expected to open during the winter of 2018.