Like it was for many eating establishments in Smithers, the shutdown due to COVID-19 in the spring, was devastating for Roadhouse.
When your restaurant is the culmination of a lifelong dream, however, you find a way to carry on.
“The one time we closed, we lost a lot of people,” said Moe Kafer, Roadhouse co-owner with sister Michaela. “So, you have to start all over again and that’s tough.”
But they did, beginning with takeout shortly after the pandemic closed their doors.
“Take out, we were super pleased with the community support that we got, [but] it’s barely enough to keep the power running,” Moe said.
When they were able to re-open to sit-in dining, there were challenges, number one being staffing. Moe listed a number of issues surrounding kitchen staff that Smithers restaurateurs are all familiar with. These include lack of trained chefs locally or even elsewhere in Canada, record low enrolment in cooking schools and lack of affordable housing even if you are able to recruit people.
“Ultimately we ended up having employ imported skilled staff from Morocco,” she said. “They come in under a francophone program. It’s very expensive for us, but we had no alternative.”
In the meantime, it meant they had to reduce hours for awhile because Michaela was ending up working double shifts trying to keep the kitchen going.
They persevered, however, managed to get re-staffed and Roadhouse is back up to five days a week (Wednesday to Sunday) for dinner and for brunch on weekends.
Of course, the other big challenge has been COVID-19, but Moe said they are taking all possible measures to assure their staff is safe and patrons feel comfortable visiting.
“So we have chosen that we’re doing temperature checks and oxygen level tests on our staff everyday, we wear masks because we feel like although there isn’t COVID up here supposedly, you do have to do preventative measures, do your part for the community and especially for our staff because they interact with a lot of people over the course of their shift,” Moe said. “Whatever we can to make sure they’re safe and healthy is important. We’re just crossing our fingers for a kind winter.”
Roadhouse is the manifestation of Michaela’s lifelong vision for fine dining in Smithers. When her kids had grown and left home, she put the vision to the test with a food truck called Caravan that was wildly popular in town. With that success, she turned her focus to a brick-and-mortar operation.
“She’s always had her eye out for the right building and the old ski shop came up and she was, like, ‘this is it’,” Moe explained. “I was still working in England as a food photographer and she was telling me about her dream of maybe making this all come true and we were talking about it and she was, like, ‘I really don’t want to do it alone,” and I said, ‘what does your ideal business partner look like?’ She said “well, it looks like you’.”
But that wasn’t in the cards for Moe until Brexit came along.
“I started entertaining the idea of coming and doing it with Michaela, cause we were constantly in contact about everything and then I went with Michaela. I miss my family and, yeah, lets do it, move from the bustling metropolis of London and enjoy some healthy living in Smithers.”
Two lifetimes of travelling the world are reflected in every aspect of the business from the menu to the decor, but then with the added local flair of Bulkley Valley artists and a B.C.-focussed wine list.
“We’re just very proud,” Moe said. “Art’s always been a thing in both of our lives, so its nice to be able to champion local artists. We have so many international visitors … and it’s great to be able to say ‘all these pieces are local, this is what our community does’.”
With Christmas coming up, the restaurant will not be doing parties because of public health restrictions, but Moe and Michaela are looking forward to welcoming people for some holiday cheer, anyway.
“We’ll just do some Christmassy features and if people want to come in their own household groups up to six people, they’re welcome to do so,” she said. “We’ve always got some delicious cocktails to celebrate with. And we’ll just wait until normalcy comes back. It’s important that we make it out the other end.”
