The owner of a popular new restaurant opening soon in Williams Lake credits the local mayor with helping guide the project through city hall.
“I think people are just trying to do their jobs, I don’t think anybody is trying to make it difficult. When I did have some frustrations the mayor contacted my crew right away and got involved. He was very helpful,” said Stonewater Group president Darren Flintoff, noting the Mr. Mike’s Casual Steakhouse coming to the lakecity will be his 11th restaurant.
“The folks downtown have been amazing in helping us get to the levels we need. We are excited and the community has responded amazingly. In my home community of New Westminster my mayor and council said no to me when I wanted to lease one of their city buildings because they wanted a fancier restaurant and people on the council reached out to me when they heard what we were doing in Williams Lake.”
Williams Lake has made an effort to meet his requests and it’s been positive, Flintoff said.
There was a point when Flintoff investigated putting in a rooftop deck, but the requirement for more parking and a secondary set of stairwells would have been required by the city.
“We decided not to worry about it because we have to get the restaurant open and don’t have any time to go through any meetings or variances so I just killed the idea until we are open,” Flintoff said. “We will revisit it, but obviously now that we are soon to be open the costs go up because we’ll need steel beams instead of posts and things like that.”
Flintoff said he is aware that people want the rooftop but he is on a timeline.
He wanted the restaurant open for May 1 and is a little behind schedule.
In his 30 years of building, patios have always been called seasonal seating and didn’t require extra parking, but it is getting tougher and tougher everywhere with cities adopting what he called “Vancouver-type codes” instead of local community codes.
“It used to be you talked to Fred and Tom and they would help to get things done, but now everyone is concerned about liability,” he said. “If we need a secondary stairwell for fire code then it will have to go on the outside of the building, because we are not going to tear apart the building. Again that would involve the city and the landlord because everybody has to be a part of the discussion.”
Flintoff said he does not want a bunch of controversy over the rooftop deck because it has been a combination of timing and people just doing their jobs around the city’s bylaws and codes.
Mr. Mike’s is set to open its new restaurant in Williams Lake on June 12.
“I know they’ve done a hiring process and training starts the first of June with an initial orientation day. I think the community is going to be proud with what’s been built and we have a great management team.”
