Grunthal restaurants now under one roof

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This article was published 14/07/2016 (2839 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Two restaurants now serving dishes under the same roof in Grunthal are setting out to prove there are not too many cooks for this kitchen.

Two restaurants. Two cooks. One building. But don’t call this a merger.

G’s Northside Café moved last month into the exact same premises of Grunthal Garden, maybe a five minute walk west, but still on Main Street in Grunthal. There is no combined name, nor a singular menu; both restaurants are still operating independently.

Competitors have become companions.

“I just gained another sister,” Sue Tat, owner of Grunthal Garden, explained of a woman she has happily found herself to have a lot in common with: Geri Dyck, owner of G’s Northside Café.

“We should have done this two years ago,” added Tat.

The unlikely union came about because of Dyck’s father. His daughter started running G’s in 2014 but that didn’t stop her father from making his morning pilgrimage to Grunthal Garden for coffee. He got to know the owners well and at one point Tat, who had entertained offers to sell the restaurant for about a year, asked Dyck if his daughter had renewed the lease for her place. He said yes.

That conversation, which happened in May, was relayed back to Geri. She corrected her father—in fact, she had not signed a lease.

She soon got the gist of Tat’s proposal: perhaps they could have two restaurants in one place?

“I didn’t know what to think at first,” said Dyck.

“I did a lot of praying, to think about it and talk to my family.”

Initially, Tat floated the idea that Dyck would own the restaurant, hiring her husband Cuong Tat as a cook, but the two businesses ultimately chose to retain their independence.

An agreement was reached in about two weeks, with the two restaurants opening their remade two-restaurants-in-one in the final days of June.

Big chains like the combo of KFC and Taco Bell or Tim Hortons and Wendy’s have operated joint stores, but on the small-business scale, it doesn’t come along too often.

“We can’t give up,” said Dyck. “This is something different, but if we both want to make it work, we have to learn to work together and I think we’ve been good so far.”

Tat’s own path makes for quite a story. Working at a taxation centre in Winnipeg, Sue Tat was simply along for the ride when her friend wanted to drive to Marchand to visit a restaurant for sale. They missed their turnoff and kept driving down Highway 59, eventually getting to Vita. Once there they contacted a real estate agent who suggested two restaurant stops in Grunthal would be available to them.

Then Tat’s friend chose to back out, leaving the Tat family, their curiosity now piqued, to open a restaurant themselves in Grunthal. “Somehow I just had a feeling with this town,” said Tat.

They would move to the community and begin Grunthal Garden, which has been situated at 172 Main Street for nearly 13 years.

For Dyck, opening a restaurant of her own is realizing a dream. After many part-time gigs in the industry while working at Loewen Windows for more than two decades, she set off on her own in 2014. Dyck is recognizable to many in Grunthal, where she was the woman behind the counter at the arena’s canteen for a decade.

“People would always say (back then), ‘you need to open your own place,’” she recalls.

Both Dyck and Tat acknowledge the struggles in running small business, and they hope by joining forces to cut enough overhead costs to make the day-to-day easier.

What they have both always loved about the restaurant business—and will continue to enjoy—are the patrons. They are continuing to visit during this new arrangement.

“It’s friendship. It’s not customers anymore,” said Tat.