Cabot Trail restaurant has new owners
NORTH SHORE — A new Mother Hen has come to roost at a landmark Cabot Trail restaurant.
The Clucking Hen Café and Bakery, located about 16 kilometres north of the Englishtown Ferry, will reopened on Saturday under new owners Glenda Ogley and her partner Robert Williams.
Although she’s from Ontario, Ogley has deep family ties to Cape Breton where her entire family, including her mother and siblings all live. In fact, the couple was visiting her mother last May when they came across the Clucking Hen during a trip around the Cabot Trail.
“It was a beautiful day like today — a little bit cold, a little bit windy — a perfect day to drive the Cabot Trail,” Ogley recalled Tuesday.
“I said to Rob, ‘Why don't we take you for a drive through the Cabot Trail? You haven't even experienced the beauty of this island yet.’”
They stopped at the Other Cupboard Emporium in Indian Brook and after chatting with the store’s owner asked her to recommend a nearby place to eat.
‘I KNEW IT WAS MINE’
“She said ‘If you go another couple kilometres down, there's a restaurant called the Clucking Hen. Their food is phenomenal, their baked goods are phenomenal, the view is phenomenal and that's where you should eat.’”
Ogley said they noticed the for sale sign as soon as they pulled in but they were soon struck by the restaurant and the property.
“I just felt like it was mine. Rob just looked at me and he's like, ‘You have a look’ and I was like, ‘No, no, no, I'm fine.’ We got in the restaurant and I fell in love with all the staff. They were all amazing.
I got to talking then I started looking for Rob and he was actually outside at the end of the property. And I looked at my mom and I said, ‘Oh my God, I just have the feeling that we're going to buy this.’ I knew it was mine. And before we left our holidays, we put an offer on it.”
CULINARY COMFORT AND CREATIVITY
While she’d never intended to buy a restaurant, Ogley is confident she didn’t bite off more than she could chew.
She’s worked alongside celebrity chef Massimo Capra as his executive assistant for the past 13 years and plans to continue helping him run his Ontario restaurants during the Clucking Hen’s offseason.
“I did not go to culinary school but I did go to the school of hard knocks with chef Massimo Capra and I'm trained just as well as the next person,” said Ogley. “I am an extreme foodie. I have always been. I'm a great cook.”
While the Clucking Hen will continue to serve the signature comfort food dishes that have made it a favourite among locals and tourists, Ogley plans to add her own colours to the culinary canvas through daily specials.
She said the Clucking Hen will offer grab-and-go items such as Roman-style pizzas and panini sandwiches, as well as Capra's famous ragu alla bolognese meat sauce, a donair recipe she’s been perfecting, and her mother’s boiled dinner, which uses a pork cottage roll instead of the more traditional corned beef.
“The people here are letting me know ‘Please don't change anything, please don't change anything,’ so I'm not going to change anything. I have a very, very good palate and their butter tarts are the best butter tarts I've ever eaten. A lot of the baked goods are so delicious and the food is so good, so why would I change any of that? So I'm going to inject my life with specials — a lot of specials — and then next year we'll just kind of start morphing it a little bit. I am going to just do daily specials of what my palate is and you know what I want to offer to the community and maybe just bring the recipes that are here up a notch.”