Summer food in Sharbot Lake

Jul 19, 2023

COVID took a toll on the restaurants in Sharbot Lake. The Maples Restaurant, at Sharbot Lake beach, remained open throughout the pandemic for take out, augmenting its existing take-out pizza business with other dishes. The restaurant owners, Phil and Lorette Gray, were ready for a change, however. The restaurant had been for sale even before the pandemic hit, and they did sell in the fall of 2021.

After some unforeseen construction delays, Belong Sharbot Lake opened this past spring. It started slowly, offering take-out at lunch time, and some pris-fixe evenings, and has now hit its groove with a lunch and dinner menu offering the freshest possible ingredients, locally sourced as much as possible. If there is a signature dish at Belong, it would be the St. Lawrence Salad, which features Fen Valley Greens and Belong’s Brown Butter vinaigrette dressing.

The other full-service sit-down restaurant in Sharbot Lake, located just up the causeway from Belong, is the Crossing Pub at the Sharbot Lake Country Inn. When COVID hit, the Pub transitioned to take-out service three days a week, and kept to that model much longer than many other restaurants, even as the pandemic eased. The dining re-opened between Thursdays and Saturdays last fall. The Country Inn and the restaurant went up for sale last summer, and was purchased in early June. Until last week, the menu and hours remained limited, but as of this week the Crossing Pub will have expanded hours, to 5 or 6 days a week. The new owner is planning to open for breakfast as well, and in addition to the pub food fare that has been on offer, the Kothu Labs menu from the Perth Restaurant also owned by the new owner of the hotel, Gobi Natal, a Torontonian of Sri Lankan descent, is coming to Sharbot Lake.

Surprisingly, the upstart Cardinal Café, by far the newest of the three eateries that are located within short walking distance from each other, was the least impacted by COVID. Following Public Health Guidelines, it went take-out only in 2020, after closing for a couple of weeks to re-set, and slowly returned to its normal operation. While the first summer of COVID was slower than normal for the Cardinal, the next fall and winter were busier than normal as seasonal residents spent more time at their country homes during the pandemic. The Cardinal also changed owners, on the May long weekend in 2022, but the transition was relatively seamless, not affecting the hours of operation at the beginning of the summer of ’22.

If the three locations at the foot of the village are the southern food corridor in Sharbot Lake, Highway 7 is the northern corridor. At the corner of Highway 7 and Road 38, Gray’s Grocery/the Corner Bakery was purchased by Rimpy and Ram Kaillon. The Corner Bakery had already established a reputation for Butter Tarts and other treats that are sold on site and at other locations throughout the region, breakfast sandwiches, pizza and a deli counter, but Rimpy Kaillon has brought something new Indian grab and go meals; including butter chicken, chick pea and lamb curry and samosas.

Across Road 38, the Sharbot Lake Subway store is located in the building that once housed the Rising Bun Bakery and Tearoom. The Ultramar Service Station is the location for a Square Boy Pizza Outlet, part of an Oshawa based chain with 16 locations. A bit further west, at the foot of Road 509, Frenchie’s Chip Hut started up in 2021 and has remained open, through summer heat and winter cold, ever since. Even though it is not located at what would normally be considered a prime location, fresh cut fries, burgers, sausages from Seed to Sausage butcher and fish and chips, have made Frenchie’s a popular choice for locals and travelers alike.

On Highway 7 to the east towards a few kilometres, the Fall River Café is a destination for Sharbot Lake residents. The Café is open Wednesday to Sunday for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Under owner Pradeep Vablachandran, who purchased the restaurant in the spring of 2022, the Fall River Café’s breakfasts have become very popular, and the combination of classic comfort food dishes, along with curries and European favourites, have created a following from Perth to Sharbot Lake to the roadside location.

If you travel west from Sharbot Lake to Arden, in the heart of the Land O’Lakes, where there was a food and fuel desert until recently, when Barbie Matson stepped in to foil the gap by opening C4 Convenience in December, 2020. In addition to groceries and fuel, C4 prepares baked goods, grab and go meals, pizza, and runs a chip truck.

In addition to restaurants, it is hard to over-state the importance of the Mike Dean’s Local Grocer store to Sharbot Lake and the surrounding communities. When the Loblaws company was unable to find a new franchise owner for the Sharbot Lake Valumart in 2012, the very real possibility of Sharbot Lake becoming a food desert was looming. As the store was winding down, the shelves were looking leaner and leaner, pushing locals to the Foodland stores in Verona and Northbrook, or the Independent Grocer store in Perth, all three a 30-minute drive from Sharbot Lake.

10 years ago in late March, that all changed when the store became part of the Mike Dean Local Grocer chain. Along with stores in Chesterville and Bourget, the store has been thriving ever since, cementing itself as a core part of the Mike Dean’s business portfolio. When the COVID pandemic hit, supply chain issues were a challenge for even the large grocery chains, but for Gordon Dean, who runs the company that his late father Mike started, it took a monumental effort to keep the shelves stocked. The staff at the store, facing the uncertainty of the times, kept the store open throughout, even working with the volunteer drivers from Frontenac Transportation Services to arrange delivery for seniors and the medically vulnerable.

Mike McKenzie from Seed to Sausage took over the Sharbot Lake Butcher Shop, on Road 38 about 12km south of Sharbot Lake in 2011. He quickly established the Seed to Sausage brand of artisan sausages and bacon across Eastern Ontario and into Toronto, opening a store in Ottawa as well as the Seed to Sausage Factory store.

Day of the Pig events started a year or so later, as parties on the May long weekend to celebrate the opening of the store each year and the start of the BBQ season. The Day of the Pig drew crowds from as far away as Toronto to eat roast sucking pig, and foods prepared by chefs from Ottawa, and local artisan vendors such as Back Forty Cheese and Fine Chocolate by Ludwig. The Day of the Pig lasted about 5 years, and the Sharbot Lake Seed to Sausage Store is open all year long now, as the local food scene has matured.

Taken as whole, there has been a consistent increase in both the range and quality of food available in stores, grab and go, traditional take-out and eat-in options for permanent and seasonal residents and visitors to Sharbot Lake.

There have been a lot of changes in ownership since the pandemic, and there is a pattern to the changes. Greg and Christine Butler (Cardinal Café) Brad Long (Belong Sharbot Lake), Gobi Natal (Crossing Pub) and Pradeep Vablachandran (Fall River Café) have diverse cultural and cooking backgrounds, but they share one important thing, they all come from the GTA and they have put their heart, soul, and money, into Sharbot Lake.

Combined with decisions by long established local business families (the Kaillons in Sharbot Lake and the Matsons in Arden) the area is becoming a food destination.