Fighting fast food in Edmonton
From Macleans.ca:
Independent restaurants have joined forces so they can survive in a landscape of chains
JENNIFER COCKRALL-KING | February 6, 2008 |
When Jessie Radies was about to run out of napkins one busy evening at her 35-seat boutique Edmonton restaurant, the Blue Pear, she picked up the phone and made a surprising call a€” to a competing restaurant. “I phoned Patrick Saurette, manager at Il Portico, and we were able to pick some up right away,” she recalls. And when Saurette’s chef was looking for a raise, he called up Wilson Wu at Wild Tangerine and asked straight out what Wu was paying his executive chef. Peter Jackson, a 20-year veteran of the city’s restaurant scene at Jack’s Grill, remembers taking calls almost daily from Frank Olsen, when Olsen and his wife took over the small but ambitious Red Ox Inn dining room, in search of good local ingredient suppliers. Realistically, as independents, these restaurateurs compete for the same diners. Equally important in Alberta’s booming economy, they compete for staff. So why are waiters occasionally overheard suggesting their customers visit other independent restaurants down the street?
