Creative caring during the pandemic
This is a story of how food builds community.
It’s also the love story “of a salty Australian who meets a coffee-loving Canadian bird and finds himself trading in endless summers & sandy beaches for new adventures in Canada. Inspired by their Aussie love for beautiful coffee, simple fresh food & welcoming spaces, they open a small café in Hamilton… Come say g’day!” (Salty Espresso website)
“They” are Dahlia Ishak, who left her hometown of Sudbury, spending about 10 years in Australia, where she met Ray Turner.
Leaving behind their Brisbane coffee shop, they moved to Hamilton — where they knew no one — and opened Salty in June 2017. They recently joined a partnership opening Meanwhile Wine Bar. The café’s menu leans toward breakfasttype offerings (eggs on toast, chicken/ bacon sandwiches) with 49th Parallel Coffee. Word on the street has been that they have the best brunch in town.
Says Ishak: “Through that shop we’ve developed our entire friendship base, all our relationships, an incredible community of customers and our staff … I don’t think we would have had the life we’re so fond of in Hamilton without the community we got through our shop … it keeps us going … making us feel that this is our home in so many ways.”
From Day 1, Ishak began building friendships, collaborating with other shops on community projects. They helped launch the Hamilton Specialty Coffee Show, fundraising initiatives such as the Hamilton Cookbook and, more recently, a BBQ fundraiser for those affected by the fires in Australia.
No surprise, then, that when the pandemic crisis began they thought not just of themselves but their hospitality colleagues. Salty Espresso closed to ponder options for them and their “brothers in arms.” It was clear that everyone they knew was struggling, and their first impulse was to help everybody.
On March 16, they launched Totes Together, a fundraising project that was successful, but not ideal as long-term support. Donors purchased a tote bag and nominated a restaurant that would receive the profit from the purchase.
With a background in graphic arts, Ishak did most of the whimsical designs, sometimes linked to a restaurant’s brand imagery.
Much has been written about citizens feeling helpless in the face of the crisis. Ishak felt the totes project was a convergence of everything she knew how to do, and it was empowering. Working “on it every single day for that whole first week especially … really got us through… I had a mission every single day.”
The project ended on March 31. It’s astonishing that in two short weeks it pulled in $40,000 in sales. After production costs and tax, $20,000 was paid directly to local hospitality businesses across the city (120 in total). Leftover funds were donated to Food4Kids.
By March 24, Ishak and Turner had pulled together a survival concept for Salty Espresso — the Salty General Store. The crisis put their plans for a retail platform into high gear, selling mixed bags of fruit or vegetables, plus eggs, granola, pasta, cherry balsamic dressing and falafel hash and the list keeps expanding.
Since my first order, they have added bread from Nique, flour, cookie dough, oat milk, and perogies and more.
Turner is fulfilling his dream of creating “Salty” products based on his love of pickling (zucchini and beets) and sauces (smoked pineapple BBQ, red pepper, tomato chutney and bacon onion jam).
My veggie bag (actually a box) was filled with more than I’ll list here, but included carrots and tomatoes which tasted better than what I get at the grocers. Kale became a great salad next to their signature falafel hash. The butternut squash and a giant sweet potato were welcome when a recipe calling for both landed in my email box.
The Salty General is not only supplying patrons with high-quality goods, but helping to sustain their own supply chain. All with the goal of keeping their community healthy — a goal shared by others. A recent collaboration with Orbis Communications has them assembling 500 food bags going to front-line workers and food banks over the next five weeks.
Salty Espresso ended the year 2019 with a long Instagram post from Ishak that eerily foreshadowed what was to come. “It’s been a truly big year. We hit challenges in all aspects … (and it) starts to kick in that every year will be full of ups and downs, and the measure of it being a big year isn’t so much the obstacles to overcome, but rather the ways in which we grow.”
Postscript: Similar to Totes Together, the “Sorry We’re Closed” fundraising campaign, spearheaded by Ricky Pridmore (Press Time Design) is creating T-shirts with restaurant logos. Twenty of the $28 price goes directly to the eatery. So far most participants are from the Niagara Peninsula, with Hamilton locations joining recently.