Peterborough Blogs
Entrepreneurs Are Preparing for Patio Season As Permitted By the City of Peterborough
/As Downtown Peterborough increases space for pedestrians and patios, several entrepreneurs are eager to serve their customers with patio dine-in beginning Friday.
Existing approved patios are permitted to open with the province’s announcement of Stage one re-opening for the Peterborough region.
Restaurants have been unable to serve dine-in customers since late March due to the emergency brake shutdown announced by the Government of Ontario.
“After a quiet winter and two months of being on lockdown, we’re very excited to see people out on the street again enjoying all that downtown has to offer,” said Susan Tung, owner of Hanoi House.
Tung is a first-time entrepreneur with her Vietnamese restaurant located in downtown Peterborough on Hunter Street and on Lansdowne St. W.
Tung is not the only restaurant owner excited to be able to serve dine-in customers again. Taso’s Restaurant & Pizzeria is eager to open its doors to the public for dine-in.
“We’ve been crazy busy this week making sure everything is in place to be able to open our patio for Friday,” said Taso Hatzianastasiou, owner of Taso’s Restaurant & Pizzeria. “We’re really excited to be able to bring back our serving staff and finally welcome customers.”
The re-opening of restaurants is one more step towards normalcy from the COVID-19 pandemic that has drastically affected the world since March 2020.
”The sentiment of opening is an overwhelming feeling of relief,” said Adam Brown, co-owner of Dr. J’s BBQ and Brews and Chemong Lodge. “I’m relieved that our staff can get back to work, that our guests can feel some sense of normalcy and that we can get back to what we love to do.”
The City of Peterborough released guidelines that businesses opening patios need to follow under the easing of its emergency orders.
Establishments must take measures to ensure physical distancing of at least two metres between patrons from different households, including:
Using reservations – no lineups.
Limiting the number of patrons allowed in the outdoor space at one time.
Ensuring enough space between tables, including to allow for movement.
Access to indoor facilities is limited to patio/outdoor dining area access, food pickup, payment, washrooms or other health and safety purposes.
Liquor sales licensees who wish to temporarily extend the physical size of their existing licensed patio, or temporarily add a new licensed patio within the approved period are authorized to do so if all the following criteria are met
The physical extension of the premises is adjacent to the premises to which the licence to sell liquor applies.
The municipality in which the premises is situated does not object to an extension.
The licensee can demonstrate sufficient control over the physical extension of the premises.
There is no condition on the liquor sales licence prohibiting a patio.
Peterborough Public Health and the City of Peterborough have collaborated to determine precautions that must be followed by businesses choosing to reopen existing, previously approved patios. These precautions include:
the restriction of the number of patrons on the patio to a maximum of 50% of the previously approved capacity;
the prohibition of any overhead structures such as tents and canopies; the use of umbrellas is encouraged to provide shade
ensuring that tables and chairs are at least one metre from the outer limit of the patio, in order to facilitate physical distancing.
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Local Entrepreneurs Expand Brand With New Restaurant
/Tara Lee and Adam Genge, owners of retailing business Electric City Works have expanded into the food scene by launching South - Eatery by Electric City Works on Tuesday.
Located at 597 Monaghan Rd., the restaurant offers pub fare and a patio however a grand opening date has yet to be announced.
South - Eatery by Electric City Works will be the first fully licensed restaurant opened by the couple.
“We are so excited to finally have the doors open at South,” said Genge. “It was the logical next step in the growth of our business and with such great local talent, we are so proud of the menu we have put together.”
In February, the pair launched the Electric City Works Market which served wine, beer, coffee, groceries, fresh baked goods and heat at-home meals.
They rebranded their business from Chalk Therapy to their current name as a retail store, workshop and event space.
South - Eatery is currently open for takeout orders Wednesday to Saturday from 4:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m (or until sold out).
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Local Entrepreneurs' Hot Sauce Ignites Peterborough's Taste Buds
/Too hot? Too bad! No Refund Hot Sauce has made its way into Peterborough made by Dr. J’s BBQ & Brews and Chemong Lodge co-owner Adam Brown.
After being developed during Adam’s restauranteur career in Toronto, the hot sauce has found its way into Peterborough retailers such as One Fine Foods, Primal Cuts, Sweet Beast Butcher Shop, Flannigan’s and Brown’s businesses.
The brand features seven different hot sauces and three mayos, featuring their suicide sauces called “Adam’s” and “4-Alarm”.
The sauce was developed 10 years ago when Adam’s original restaurant, “The Fox and the Fiddle” in Toronto for their chicken wings; a food Adam is a huge fan of. That spawned the idea of having a suicide sauce.
“If you’re going to have great wings, you got to have a great ‘sui’ sauce,” said Adam.
The “No Refund” name was inspired by a questionable customer experience with the sauce.”
“We had some customer send it back saying it was too hot,” said Adam. “We asked ourselves, ‘Can you send back suicide wings?’”
Brown’s friends suggested bottling the suicide sauce and selling it to local distributors. He opted to take that advice after customers who were strangers gave him the same feedback.
“We had friends saying we should bottle the sauce,” said Adam. “Once we kept hearing customers who were outside of our friendship circle saying the same thing, we heard it enough times and said why don’t we explore this a bit?”
With how flexible hot sauce recipes can be, the possibilities are endless for new products in the future.
“We played with it a lot. We’re always experimenting with peppers and flavours,” “All of our sauces are inspired regionally from all over the world. Diverse in heat and flavour.”
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Dr. J’s BBQ & Brews Owners Take Over Chemong Lodge
/Adam and Addison Brown, owners of Dr. J’s BBQ & Brews, have purchased Chemong Lodge in Bridgenorth from the Northey Family on Friday.
The Northey’s purchased the property back in 1962 and the Brown’s become the fifth family to purchase the Lodge since it was built in 1895.
“They’ve (the Northey’s) have done a phenomenal job with it,” said Adam Brown. “We’re really excited to take over that legacy and build on it.”
The three-acre property overlooks Chemong Lake and was a restored luxury cottage repurposed as a restaurant. It has been closed since last year due to the pandemic.
The Chemong Lodge website has been updated to reflect the hours, new ownership and online ordering of their menu of freshly-cooked or vacuum-packed food.
The Brown family will bring the smokers from Dr. J’s for the Lodge’s reopening on Victoria Day weekend starting Friday to provide curbside take-out orders of their food. Pulled pork, ribs and brisket among other things will be available for purchase as their way of introducing themselves to the community. They will operate at the following times and dates:
Friday, May 21: 2:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. or until sold out
Saturday, May 22: Noon to 8:00 p.m. or until sold out
Sunday, May 23: 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. or until sold out
“Chemong Lodge has been to us, as it’s been to so many, a great place of celebration (birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, engagements) and we would like to thank the Northey’s for all of the special moments they’ve created for us and the local community.” said The Brown family in a press release. So many families have shared in the great food, love and laughter that you have provided.”
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Owner Of Olde Stone Brewing Company & Hot Belly Mama's Announces Both Restaurants Closing Due To Impact Of Pandemic
/[UPDATE: A GoFundMe page has been set up to save the businesses. The page is requesting $500,000 and donors have already begun donating.]
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