It’s been a long and sometimes difficult journey in bringing Cafe Michael in Castlegar up to the highest standards, but owner Diane Wong feels they are finally there.
Wong owns Cafe Michael along with her partner Landon Giguere, who also acts as head chef.
“We opened April 22, 2010,” she said. “It took us several months to get everything in line to open.”
The restaurant has been open for less than two years but Wong and Giguere have had to work hard to get Cafe Michael to the level of quality they want to see.
“It’s been slow, but I feel our product is so much better than when we opened,” said Wong. “There’s a reason we didn’t have a grand opening. I was planning one, but I never felt like we were ready. Now I feel confident in every plate that goes out. We have a handle on the business. I’m getting a lot of regular customers and great feedback.”
Wong and Giguere have tweaked the menu and added several new changes that have proved very popular.
“We have what I would say is classic food,” said Wong. “We have really good Greek ribs, really good souvlakis, really good prime ribs every day, really good steak.”
One of the new changes at Cafe Michael is the addition of breakfasts on Saturday and Sunday.
“It’s targeted for the families that need to get out and enjoy quality time over really good food,” said Wong. “It’s homemade hollandaise, freshly squeezed orange juice, fresh smoked salmon, homemade hash brown. Everything is just really good quality.”
Cafe Michael purchases most of their food from local farmers such as farm fresh eggs from a local organic farmer in Fruitvale.
Of course, Cafe Michael also offers up delicious lunch and dinner. Lunch-goers can dine on beef dip, burgers, steak sandwiches, club houses, and more.
“We also sell a lot of crepes here,” she said. “Castlegar is a crepe town. We have really good croissants. Our lunches come with caesar salad and most come with homemade fries. We have really good pizzas. We sell a lot more pizza than when we first opened.”
If people are at work or at home and don’t want to cook, Cafe Michael offers pick-up as well as delivery.
“We like to accommodate people’s busy schedules,” she said.
Cafe Michael also offers fresh, homemade desserts and coffees.
“We have a nice, fancy machine,” she said. “It’s a Nuova Simonelli. They use it all the international, prestigious contests. It’s really good. Our beans, we get from Kootenay Coffee Company. All our desserts are good. We have creme brule, baked chocolate pudding, black forest cake, cheese cake. We have really good, homemade desserts.”
Wong admits that when she and Giguere first bought and took over the restaurant they weren’t ready for the excessive number of customers.
“At the beginning, when we opened up, it was hard to deal with the volume we were getting,” said Wong. “We were in a new kitchen, with new staff. It was a huge learning curve. We had to work with people we didn’t know in a busy climate. It was very difficult.”
To make things even tougher, Wong was caring for her baby and was not able to put in as much time around the restaurant as she would’ve liked.
Cafe Michael’s sister restaurant in Trail is owned and operated by Wong’s parents. Her parents used to work for renowned chef Gabrielle, who operated the restaurant in Castlegar before it became known as Cafe Michael. Gabrielle is retired but still owns the property.
“My mom and dad worked for Gabrielle’s,” she said. “They started Cafe Michael in 1989 in Trail. I grew up in the restaurant business. Recently, I’ve been doing more and more in the last couple of years. Learning recipes and working in the kitchen.”
Wong graduated from UBC in 2000 and moved back to Trail to work at Cominco. She worked for Firebird (now known as 5N) for several more years.
“I wanted a change and my parents were ready for retirement, so I took the opportunity to take a leave,” she said. “I thought about taking over the business. I introduced Landon into it. He began doing more of the cooking.”
Unfortunately, fate had other ideas for Wong and Giguere. A car drove into Cafe Michael in 1998 and destroyed much of the kitchen and also burned Giguere, who was working in the kitchen at the time.
“That just shook up my parents financially at the time,” said Wong.
The elder Wongs eventually rebuilt the kitchen and re-opened Cafe Michael.
Diane and Giguere were able to take over the old Gabrielle’s Restaurant location in Castlegar.
“Gabrielle came to our house and offered the place to us,” said Giguere. “He wanted us to take over and we accepted.”
“He had confidence in us that we would do well here,” said Wong.
Despite the bumpy start, the two are pleased with the restaurant and are looking forward to the future.
“We just love the business,” said Wong. “It’s very social for us. We enjoy it. We love serving good food. We’re part of every type of occasions like births, deaths, celebrations, anniversaries, birthdays. We also love catering events such as private meeting. We had Adrienne Clarkson here with the city staff. We take pride in our food. We handle our food with love.”
