It isn’t easy to run a restaurant, especially since the pandemic, but Ottawa financial adviser Cameron Ross keeps finding ways to make it work. Ross has been in finance since 2009, spending 15 years as a wealth manager at Integral Wealth Securities before switching firms to become an independent financial adviser with Mandeville Private Client earlier this year. But outside of his financial career, two other passions have been drawing him in for years: restaurants and golf. In 2015, he merged those two interests and opened Mulligans Golf Bar, a gastropub on Queen Street just steps from Parliament Hill. “In high school, I was a server at a restaurant because I was good at it and I could make more money,” Ross told OBJ in an interview. “Then I was a server at university. Even after I became an adviser, when my girlfriend, now wife, was away at university, I was just kind of bored and I started moonlighting at a restaurant because I enjoyed it. I never thought I would open one.”Working out of a downtown office piqued his interest in restaurants that catered to the lunch crowd of business professionals. The location he chose, which had previously been a Thai restaurant, was ideally located to draw those people in. He also knew what else the business crowd loves: golf. “I’m a big golfer,” he said. “I heard a smart businessman once say that he wanted to golf with all of his staff because after spending four hours with somebody without interruptions, you have a pretty good idea of who they are. You get to see the ebbs and flows of their emotion during a golf game. I had someone say once that no paperwork gets signed on the golf course. And I’m like, yeah, but after one game, I consider us associates. If we go for a second round, now we’re friends.”A golf simulator at Mulligans Golf Bar (Photo: Facebook/Mulligans Golf Bar)While you won’t find a golf green in downtown Ottawa, technology has made it possible for a restaurant like Ross’s to have the next best thing. Mulligan’s is equipped with state-of-the-art golf simulators that use smart cameras to track the movement of the ball and clubs. “About 10 years ago the technology got a lot better,” he said. “Even simulators that are 14 or 15 years old aren’t very accurate. The cameras and computer programs have gotten a lot better. It all depends on the simulator you’re golfing on, whether it’s accurate and how enjoyable it is.”It’s not the same as playing 18 holes outside, but Ross said it’s a good way to practise skills and work on muscle memory, especially during Ottawa’s off-season. In the summer, guests can avoid getting sunburnt while hanging out in a private golf suite and enjoying food and drinks. And, as Ross puts it, even an indoor round of golf is a great way to schmooze potential clients and business partners. “There’s a certain amount of being in the community that I think is challenging, unless you’re in that kind of industry,” he said. “It’s hard. So being downtown, you get a lot of working professionals, lawyers, other advisers, accountants. There’s a lot of offices down here. My regulars don’t always become clients but I’ve received referrals from regulars who get to know who I am and what I do. They say, ‘Oh you need an adviser? Go to Cam, he’s great.’”For Ross, the restaurant is a side hustle, taking up about 10 hours of his time in a typical week. To keep things running smoothly, he’s off-loaded much of the responsibilities of the restaurant’s day-to-day function to his staff of qualified employees. “I’ve been saying that, whatever your side gig is, it should be somebody else’s main gig or else nothing gets done,” said Ross. But it isn’t always easy to find the right balance. During the pandemic, Ross said he spent considerable time stressing about the restaurant’s finances as it closed due to lockdown restrictions. “(Restaurants) haven’t had a lot of normal times over the past decade,” he said. “Normally, it’s good, but the opportunity for extra headaches and stress have probably taken a few years off my life. Someone quits, a projector gets hit by a golf club, then the extra stress of the pandemic was the worst I had. My restaurant closed indefinitely, my first kid was born, and I had to take up meditation and breathing exercises.”Mulligan’s is currently expanding to a third floor in the building it occupies in the hopes of setting up a grab-and-go area called Mosaic Bar. The plan is for the new space, which is on the second floor, to serve global-inspired handheld and street foods. Ross hopes the extra square footage will also help the restaurant pivot even more toward accommodating group events, which have become its bread-and-butter since downtown workers have gone remote. “I call my restaurant more of a garden than a business,” Ross said. “It feeds me and I get some zen from the camaraderie with the staff. I’m a business aficionado. I like to understand the inner workings of business, but it doesn’t make any money. With the price increase of labour and food, the profits of a restaurant are pretty tight.”Still, he said, “People will put 20K in their garden every year. We’re like that. We’re doing great sales, but no profit. My father passed 16 years ago and I had an epiphany about the longevity of life. You only have one. You probably have all the money you need. So might as well take risks when you’re young.”
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