Dearth of wait staff sends Sturgeon in new direction
Owners of a downtown Kelowna restaurant want to focus more on alcohol and less on food, and a staffing shortage is said to be part of the reason for the switch.
City council will consider an application next Tuesday to change the licensing designation of Sturgeon Hall from food primary to liquor primary.
“This would give us more flexibility in our operations,” owner Louis Drummond said Tuesday.
“The main difference is with a liquor primary licence, we wouldn’t have to keep the kitchen running every single hour that we’re open,” Drummond said.
A broad range of menu items would be available from 9 a.m. until after the dinner hour, when only snacks would be offered. Children would still be permitted, until 10 p.m., and the 1 a.m. closing time would be unchanged.
Sturgeon Hall has operated on the main floor of a brick building at 1481 Water St. for 22 years. Constructed in 1922 in the lean years after the First World War, it is included on the city’s heritage register.
“The two-storey, two-bay-wide brick building is representative of the plain, nononsense commercial architecture of its time,” according to the register.
Prior to housing a restaurant, the building was home to a newspaper, printing company, stationery supply store, dentist and psychiatrist.
Bordello’s, an Italian restaurant on the second floor, shut down after Labour Day. The closure reflected the difficulties being experienced by many restaurants in B.C. in finding sufficient staff, Drummond said.
“It’s hard enough to get restaurant staff, never mind decent staff, and working at Bordello’s required skill,” Drummond said. “Basically, changing (Sturgeon Hall’s) licence from food to liquor primary is sort of precautionary. We don’t want to get caught in the same situation there of having to operate like a restaurant if we start to find it’s hard to get staff.”
The downtown pub trade has become more competitive in recent years with the opening of BNA Brewing, the Railway Pub, FSH, Central Kitchen and the opening next year of the Craft brew pub in the old Paramount theatre.
City staff recommend council endorse the change in licensing for Sturgeon Hall, but final approval rests with the provincial Liquor Control and Licensing Branch.