Peterborough Blogs
Foodie Friday: Dan Rennick of Apollo Grill Celebrates the Burger Joint's 10th Anniversary and Explains the Royal Burger Link
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This week on Foodie Friday in our first-ever episode, we speak with Dan Rennick, owner of Apollo Grill as he celebrates his 10th anniversary and how the storied Royal Burger's lineage lives on through his business.
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Local Café Hosts Hollywood Actress For Movie Scene Filming
/It is not every day you get a movie star like Anna Kendrick to appear in Peterborough but it was a lucky day for entrepreneur Helen McCarthy and her café, KitCoffee last Tuesday.
Helen McCarthy (left), KitCoffee owner with her employees and actress Anna Kendrick (middle right) after the Hollywood star finished filming her scene in Downtown Peterborough. Photo Courtesy of KitCoffee.
Kendrick was filming for her upcoming thriller movie, “Alice, Darling” at the Hunter Street café between Water Street and George Street in Downtown Peterborough.
KitCoffee had closed for the day but served coffee and snacks to the production staff in between filming. Some parts of the street were blocked off temporarily for the shoot.
Helen McCarthy, KitCoffee owner was not expecting as big a star as Kendrick when she agreed for her business to be used for a movie scene.
“I had walked right past Anna Kendrick who was sitting in the café,” she said. “I thought it was going to be a smaller film and I didn’t know anyone famous was going to be here.”
KitCoffee recently celebrated their second anniversary last Thursday. Photo by David Tuan Bui.
McCarthy admits that she often does not get starstruck but she and the staff had to contain themselves when the celebrity actress was in the café. They were rewarded with a photo with Kendrick when the filming had finished after showing tremendous restraint.
“The three of us who were there, we were trying not to be annoying,” she said. “We didn’t want to bother her but it would be really fun to get a picture so I ended up asking one of the crew members that we were interacting with more.”
KitCoffee sells food and drink such as coffee, tea, pastries, sandwiches and in-house made bagels. Photo by David Tuan Bui.
The short scene is Kendrick’s character, Alice, walking out of the café with a vehicle pulling up to her according to McCarthy.
Extras were filmed in and outside the building where Kendrick had a small speaking role in the scene.
Alice, Darling features an all-female led cast of Anna Kendrick, Charlie Carrick, Wunmi Mosaku and Kaniehtiio Horn with English director Mary Nighy.
The film’s plot tells the story of a young woman trapped in an abusive relationship as she becomes the unwitting participant in an intervention staged by her two closest friends.
Elevation Pictures will distribute the thriller film while Lionsgate Films will distribute it worldwide.
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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.
Chemong Lodge (pictured) has been sold by the Northey family to the Adam and Addison Brown, owners of Dr. J’s BBQ & Brews. File Photo
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 outside her first of two locations of her Vietnamese restaurant: Hanoi House. She opened her business on February 14, 2020. Photo Courtesy of Hanoi House.
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.”
Taso’s is known for their homemade pizza and Greek cuisine. Hatzianastasiou took ownership of the property on March 30, 2019 and renovated it into Taso’s. Photo courtesy of Taso’s Restaurant & Pizzeria.
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.”
Adam and Addison Brown of Dr. J’s BBQ & Brews and Chemong Lodge will have their first summer owning both businesses. Photo courtesy of Adam Brown.
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.
Lee and Genge’s first retail location opened in 2017 on Erskine Ave after becoming finalists in the Win This Space Competition. Photo Courtesy of Adam Genge.
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.”
Sandwiches, burgers, nachos and wings are some of the food offered at the restaurant. Photo Courtesy of Adam Genge.
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.
Addison James “A.J'“ Brown (pictured) and brother of Adam, co-owns Dr. J’s and Chemong Lodge. The Brown family purchased the latter two weeks ago. Photo Courtesy of 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?’”
No Refund currently has three variants of spicy mayonnaise and seven hot sauces available for purchase. Photo Courtesy of Adam Brown.
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.
Both Brown families outside their newly purchased property after the Northey’s owned Chemong Lodge for 59 years. Photo Courtesy of Sara Brown.
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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Incredibly sad news for fans of two awesome restaurants located side by side in downtown Peterborough. Owner Travis Smith has announced in a heartfelt Facebook post that they are both closing due to the impact of the pandemic on business.
Photo via Old Stone Facebook page
Here’s the full announcement:
“To all of our dearest friends, family and guests of The Olde Stone Brewing Company and Hot Belly Mama’s.
It is with deep regret and sadness that We are informing you today that as of March 1st we will be closing our doors to the public for good. We tried very hard to continue on and persevere throughout this pandemic and subsequent lockdowns but unfortunately we were beaten by it.
We want to take a minute to thank every single one of you that supported us over the last 25 years from celebration dinners to first dates, to a Friday night pint and everything in between. We have watched your families grow, and we have toasted those who have had to leave us. We truly feel very fortunate to have been a part of such a vibrant, tight-knit and caring community. We will continue to offer all your favourite menu items by take out or curb side pickup Wednesdays through Sundays from 12-8 until the end of the month, so please give us a call to enjoy that blackened catfish or a mound of sweet potato fries and we’ll be here with big smiles on our faces waiting to see you. Thank you Peterborough and we’ll see you soon!
With great love and respect,
Travis Smith and all of the staff of The Olde Stone Brewing Company and Hot Belly Mama’s”
Share your memories of these restaurants on our Facebook page.
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2020 Taste Of Downtown Has Been Cancelled Due To Covid-19 Crisis
/With the uncertainty around Covid-19 and timelines around this physical distancing phase, the popular downtown event Taste of Downtown has been cancelled for 2020.
Taste of Downtown was scheduled for Saturday, June 6th on Charlotte Street. The event typically features more than 20 local restaurants, live entertainment, a beer garden, and family activities. The event will return to Charlotte Street on June 5th, 2021.
File photo courtesy DBIA
