OCT. 31 OLIVER’S CLOSING MAY MAKE WAY FOR RETURN TO RESTAURANT ROOTS FOR MUSKOKA AND JAMES COFFEE ‘LOCAL,’ SAYS 34-YEAR BARISTA ENGLISH
Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com
GRAVENHURST — Fear not coffee lovers — another fast food restaurant is destined for Muskoka and James.
When Oliver’s Coffee closes here at the end of the month — scary thought — property owner Bill Kalogripsas plans to return it to its 50-year-old Burg and Blizzard roots.
But it won’t be a Mary Brown’s Chicken franchise, he says, like the one going into his building in Bracebridge Street across from Oliver’s flagship store on Manitoba Street.
“I’ve been making pizza for 50 years and I’m too old,” says the Greek entrepreneur who came to Muskoka in 1975 and recently saw Bill’s Pizza close in the Heart of Muskoka.
Mary Brown’s is due to open there this fall.
John English, his tenant in Gravenhurst, is getting out of the “grind” of grinding beans in the Gateway to Muskoka.
His other five stores in Bracebridge on main street and a drive-thru on Ecclestone Drive, along with smaller outlets in Bala, Port Carling and the arena Summit Centre in Huntsville will remain open along with their catering business.
He says the Friday, Oct. 31 closure has been “many years in the works.”
“We’ve been kind of grinding it out since COVID trying to get back to profitability. We were going to give it this summer and we made a decision kind of in August.”
And after 34 years as a barista in Gravenhurst he’s “sorry to go”
It’s the high overhead cost of doing business.
He says he’d keep it going if he could.
English, who first came up to Muskoka at age 24 in 1991 — after a brief cuppa coffee playing pro hockey — opened his first Country Style Donuts franchise on Hwy. 11 at Kilworthy before expanding in to downtown at the current location.
After a dispute with the company over franchise coffee fees he went independent in 2003.
Oliver’s is named after his dog — who was “long in the tooth when I named it.” Oliver has since died.
“The food service business has really changed. Our customers are very loyal and our sales have remained pretty strong. It’s the inflationary aspects that makes it super difficult.
“That site in particular we’ve got a lot more maintenance on it than some of other sites with similar sales. If I felt we could pull it back we definitely would have kept going. But this is has been four years that we’ve virtually been treading water — and a couple of years losing money.”
And he says he can’t pass costs on to customers.
On Oct. 31 Oliver’s will serve its last coffees and sandwiches.
English and his wife Jenna Smith “have offered to keep on any of the six or eight staff able to come up to Bracebridge or any of our other sites.”
He says “it’s kind of difficult” to try and sell it to another person as a turn-key going operation and operate it as an Oliver’s or under a new coffee name.
“It’s tough to give somebody the name, because my name is still attached to it.”
“I was speaking with Bill (Monday) and they’ve already got a tenant lined up. It’s sounding like a national food tenant.
English said “we’ve been in constant communications for years. He’s a great guy.”
Kalogripsas, too, calls English “a good friend.”
“Like I said, we’ve been struggling since COVID,” said English. “So I just made sure he knew this was a possibility.”
English said “I came up to Muskoka when I was 24. That was my second Country Style. I was in Kilworthy as well.”
He said “the town’s been very good to us — to the business — it was a tough decision.”
Meanwhile, he says his others stores are fine.
“Oh yeah, the other sites are doing well. We had to close the one in the Sportsplex in Bracebridge during COVID. It was another one that kinda got whacked.”
He also said “I took a pass” on bidding on the food contract for the new arena in Bracebridge. “They wanted a full service restaurant, which is not our thing.
“I got some experience, we’re up in the Summit Centre in Huntsville. But we were in the high school Sportsplex facility and it hurt.”
But “overall we’re still very healthy.
“But after four years of giving back every year we just couldn’t do it anymore” in Gravenhurst. It just was not an easy decision. And if we saw the ability to recover we would have kept grinding.”
He made no mention of recent break-ins this summer as contributing factors.
“We had tremendous support, but it still wasn’t enough.”
English says “we’re gonna do a celebration one day to say thank you. Not sure when. But we’re working on that — to say thank you to the community.”
English and Smith posted a small letter on the doors.
A community of coffee clubs will miss meeting inside with friends or after group walks to catch up on local gossip mornings and afternoons before they closed at 6 p.m.
Or sitting out front at a table enjoying their java and jabbering while watching the comings and goings of life on the main street.
High school students who slipped in during lunch periods, workers who could get in and out fast from an easy-access parking lot and summer tourists, cottagers and visitors to town who enjoyed and respected the folksy rural charm of an independent business still operating amid a sea of franchises.
English said there’s also nothing he could have done to expand it and make it profitable like a one-time investigation in to adding a drive-thru deemed too close to the railroad tracks.
Regulars lament loss
News of the closure was greeted with sadness and a hint of “what can you do?”
Steve Waite, Curtis Humber, Brian Ferguson and Don Schell were among those who hate to see their watering hole close.
“There’s nowhere else to go,” said Waite, whose family had a garage and pumps kitty corner where the CTC gas bar is now. “Who wants to go to McDonalds?”
While some people do make the pilgrimage to the South Gate Plaza as a halfway exercise stop — or across the street to Hortons — neither fast food joints have the same ambience.
“It’s not that, it’s just that this is our spot and …” McD’s lacks that je ne sais quoi of Oliver’s.
“We’ll find a spot,” said Humber whose former Stedman’s department store and lunch counter was where they used to meet up street until Humber sold it Feb. 28, 2018 to Tara and Ian McNaughton who eventually converted it to the Home Hardware today.
Other local coffee cognoscenti frequented both.
“That was a great place to go, up there,” said Waite, admitting some days he was in “there were only a couple of people. So who can blame them? They may be getting tired. Do they need the hassle? It’s their choice.”
Virgina Snider and a group of lady “street walkers” were also among the regulars who will be looking for a new pit stop.
Oliver’s joins a long list of independent landmarks that were once busy, thriving diners and eateries like the Sportsman’s Grill on Bay Street and on Muskoka Road Sloan’s and Vincent’s Coffee Shop, the Heritage Department Store, Cottage Cravings and most recently Hey Babe just a couple years ago.
It was located next to Gem and Dia, where Oliver Tasnadi joked to his mom, Baya, he should open his “Oliver’s Coffee and Jewellery.”
Back at Oliver’s, building owner Kalogripsas says it won’t be a Mary Brown’s.
“No. We don’t know yet. We have three or four companies interested.”
As for Mary Brown’s, “I have no idea when they’re going to open. They’re going to open before Christmas likely. I’m not sure.”
He says the Gravenhurst store is too small for Mary Brown’s at 1,200 square feet compared to “2,000-something” in Bracebridge.
“One of the companies that is most interested in Gravenhurst — and they’re very hot — is Barrios,” a Mexican food restaurant operating in Canada under the name of Barrio Buritto Bar.
Kalogripsas, 70, opened the Burg and Blizzard in Gravenhurst in 1981 before closing and leasing the building to “my good friend John English in 2003.”
Before that he was in Bracebridge at the bottom of Manitoba Street, where he had the Rombos and Mr. Sub in 1975 at the intersection at the Muskoka Falls.
Kalogripsas was the second owner of that Rombos, which was first opened by Chris Rombos and eventually torn down for a town parkette where the Chamber of Commerce office is now next to the closed Silver Bridge.
The Gravenhurst Rombos, owned by Nancy and Vivian Magdalinos, closed last year on Sept. 29 and Muskoka Surf and Turf opened there across from the Opera House Oct. 1.
But Kalogripsas is no longer interested in flipping pies.
The last few years he leased Bill’s Pizza to someone else before it closed.
“I give it up. I’ve been making pizza for 50 years. So that’s enough for me.”
He’ll let his sons deal with the next food generation.
When he started out there was lots of money making pizzas with almost no competition.
“Today everyone’s making them — all the chains and franchises.”
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