Interview with Dave Dorn of Fresh Start Bakery
I decided to start this restaurant after I went for a physical when I was working for a big corporation. At that point I was 250 pounds. My cholesterol was through the roof and they told me I would have to take correction action at that point or I would have to go on medication. It woke me up. That was not how I wanted to spend my later years.a€?
Dave Dorn signed up for the police force at age 18, but when they informed him that his first posting was in the Northwest Territories he decided the police force might be the wrong field for him. After a high cholesterol scare he began to exercise actively and decided to open a restaurant committed to serving healthy food.
1. When did you first become interested in working with food?
I grew up with five brothers and one sister. While I would be cooking and baking with my mom in the kitchen the rest of them were off doing other things, whether it was mechanics or whatever. I always enjoyed cooking. Then I went into the small bakery industry and worked for Safeway and Sobeya€™s for over 20 years. Ia€™ve been involved with it for a while. Not always the restaurant industry but the bakery business.
2. Who have been some of the instrumental people who have really supported you through the starting and maintaining of your restaurant?
Probably my wife would be the biggest. She is actually a really good cook and does very creative dishes. With both of us working and with kids wea€™ve had to put meals together that are healthy and quick to put together. She is a good sounding board who will give me feedback on different dishes. Shea€™ll give me little pieces of paper with ideas. When we go out to a restaurant and she sees something that she likes she will say, a€?hey leta€™s try this.a€? My brother-in-law is another person who has been a great asset to me as far as providing good business sense as well as a private investor who invested in the business. He pushed me, saying I had a good idea so to go with it.
3. What makes your restaurant interesting/unique to other restaurants? Chain restaurants in particular?
I think the biggest thing is that we make everything from the breads to our cooking. We are a variety business. We are a bakery, catering and restaurant. I think the personal touch is a big part and that is a big part of all the independent restaurants.
4. What have been your most significant joys and struggles of being an independent restaurant owner?
I think the biggest joy is seeing the business prosper and having the staff that can get along and having a great team work for me. Wea€™ve had a lot of people who have been with us right from the start. We all get closer together and the customer feedback is great. The biggest struggle is probably staffing. When somebody quits ita€™s a struggle to move on and not to take it personally. Sometimes the days are long. We have to take the good with the bad. Now wea€™re able to enjoy more time off and more family time. It took three or four years to get it settled down. With the catering and the bakery the hours are long. The bakers come in at 10:00 at night and work until 6 in the morning and then wea€™re open in the morning for coffee and breakfast and stuff.
5. How are you involved in the community around you? Do you support any local charities?
We try to go really heavily into charities. We donate all our leftovers to the Foodbank or the Bissell Center. I also sponsor the Kidney Foundation, the MS Society and the Stollery Childrena€™s Hospital. I try to support good causes. My wife is the same way because she is a nurse. We are both very avid runners, and so we do a lot of running fundraisers.
6. How largely do you try to buy locally/organically/fair trade?
We look and source out local produce and producers and wea€™re also in Dine Alberta. We try to stick locally too, and organic. With organic though it is tricky because ita€™s hard to know if something is really organic or if the producer is just telling me it is organic in order to sell it. I think people take advantage of that and abuse that as well. So I look for producers that are producing things in a traditional way instead of looking for a label that says organic on it. We buy from the Hutteritesa€”free range eggs and we buy from Viking Flour Mill. Then we buy from local producers. The free range eggs, you have to watch, but Ia€™ve gone out there and seen that they are free range. There is a big white fence and theya€™re walking all around.
7. Where does the restauranta€™s name come from?
The first place we had was Blue Ribbon Cuisine, but three kids broke in and set it on fire one night and it burnt right down along with some businesses around us. That was in 2004. So our name here meant a lot of things. It was a fresh start for us, and we serve fresh food.
8. What are some of your interests/hobbies outside of the restaurant?
I do a lot of running and biking as well. Activity-wise we do hiking and we like traveling as well. Right now our goal is to do a marathon in a different country every year. Whether ita€™s a half-marathon or a whole-marathon. My wife is from Jamaica so wea€™ve been there and around the United States.
9. What life experience has strengthened you the most?
Probably when I dealt with the most adversity. The fire was a big deal for us. It made me grow as a person. Ia€™m constantly learning. Especially right now in Alberta, finding staff. I think the biggest thing Ia€™ve learned is not to panic and not let little things feel like big things are the time.
10. Is there anything youa€™d like to add that we havena€™t covered?
I think the biggest thing that I should say that our focus is on quality and presentation. I know that Ia€™m very picky sometimes. Every morning I do a quality check and sometimes I toss things. As a business owner I always have to have my set standards because my standards will be a little bit lower than the customera€™s standards and my standards need to be above and consistent.
