Restaurant Forced to Close Doors Only Two Months After Opening
FREDERICTON – A new franchise restaurant in Downtown Fredericton was forced to close the business only two months after opening due to Federal COVID-19 regulations.
St. Louis Bar and Grill opened its doors on January 20. It’s located at 280 Kings St and has three co-owners: Jeff Beaumont, Greg Mercer, and Jeremy Cole. The restaurant is a franchise sports bar and has the atmosphere any sports fan would want to surround themselves with. Sports fans can come and watch their favourite team play on one of the restaurants 9 flat-screen TVs.
When the restaurant first opened in the winter, they had a waitlist of over an hour each night during the first week. Pub-style food and sports lovers were excited a new restaurant opened for them to enjoy.
St. Louis was only open a short two months before the first couple of COVID-19 cases hit the country, and they were forced to close their doors like the rest of the businesses around Canada.
Although, the employees weren’t fully out of work during this time. The restaurant kept up with take-out orders to ensure customers could still enjoy their food while staying safe at home. To guarantee more orders, St. Louis partnered with Skip the Dishes.
“We were doing take-out before, just not Skip the Dishes. We were kind of knowing that we were going to set it up, but when we did close for the pandemic, it really pushed us to start focusing on that,” said Courtney Halsall, an employee at St. Louis.
Another employee, Taylor Williams, remembers working the night of March 17, which was the last night the restaurant was open, and trying to learn how to operate the Skip the Dishes app.
Being able to send out take-out orders and implementing a delivery service kept the business running successfully during the two months that they were closed.
St. Louis opened back up during the May long weekend, such as many other restaurants. Provincial COVID-19 health protocols were implemented throughout the restaurant to ensure customer and employee safety. Tables were removed for limited seating; all tables were spaced out six-feet; arrows placed on the ground to guarantee a safe flow of traffic; plexiglass was installed between each booth; and most recently – moveable walls built by the restaurant’s manager, Brian Cloutier.
Due to the community support for the restaurant before the pandemic, it didn’t take long for the customers to start revisiting their favourite pub as soon as it opened back up.
“We had great support from the community, and we were crazy, crazy busy. I believe the numbers show that we were even busier after COVID than we were before,” said restaurant employee, Josh Fleck.
When the weather started getting warmer, St. Louis had the option to have two patios since the other half of the building had not been leased out. They took this opportunity, and Fleck recalls doubling the patio led to a very successful boost in sales throughout the entire summer.
Heaters were also installed on the main patio to keep patio-season going for as long as possible.
The restaurant is proud of how successful they’ve been since the reopening. Although, with winter slowly approaching, the employees at St. Louis do see a decline in business happening, as with any business during the slower months. But the employees’ aren’t losing faith and believe that business will be similar to before COVID-19.
St. Louis Bar and Grill will continue to sell local beers on tap, even seasonal ones, throughout the winter and host Frederiction’s sports fans!
