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Vancouver-based chef looks to crack Ottawa market with brunch-focused eatery Yolks

November 15, 2024

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When Vancouver-based chef Steve Ewing got a cold call from Happy Belly Food Group asking if he’d be interested in expanding his brunch-focused restaurant business, Yolks, to Ottawa, he initially declined. “Ottawa came up, which was interesting because we didn’t think we were going to go that far away from our first store. We thought we’d end up in Calgary or Edmonton, but we just made this really great connection with our partners from Ontario,” Ewing said. Mutual connections between the Yolks team and its partners at Vancouver-based food services firm Happy Belly gave them the confidence to go ahead with their newest location in the nation’s capital – a restaurant that’s set to open on Bank Street in the Glebe, where Score Pizza once stood. “I didn’t know what to expect (from Ottawa), but the Glebe is such a cool neighbourhood,” Ewing said. He says the Glebe is the perfect location for Yolks due to its similarity to the neighbourhoods where the restaurants are situated in Vancouver. “The community around the Glebe is pretty bustling. It’s a really unique group of people, too. It’s kind of reminiscent of our commercial drive in Vancouver, which is artistic, eclectic and a bit wild,” Ewing said.

From Michelin-starred restaurants to food trucks and a national expansion

After training at a culinary school in Vancouver, Ewing worked in some of Vancouver’s finest restaurants as well as abroad in Australia, Southeast Asia and at the French Laundry in the Napa Valley in California. But he wanted to work for himself, so he opened a food truck in the heart of Vancouver, serving up brunch classics like eggs benedict and breakfast sandwiches, and called it Yolks. “I started with a little 17-foot food truck in 2012, on the street corner in front of a Sky Train station in an entertainment district, which is not ideal for breakfast, but it was a good visual. We were like this blue trailer glowing at the end of a viaduct. I think it was probably the best marketing you could have done,” Ewing said. Ewing says he eventually realized the food truck business was not viable in Vancouver, so he hoped for a more permanent solution to get out of the city’s notoriously rainy weather. A stroke of luck and a Craigslist posting would be Ewing’s saving grace one morning at 5 a.m. “I saw a post on Craiglist for a commissary kitchen, and I immediately messaged the agent at the right time and got the restaurant. If I didn’t do that, I don’t know if Yolks would have made it past its second winter,” he said. Yolks’ overnight success took two years, but Ewing got his first restaurant space. “When we opened, we were super busy. We had 200 people in line on our first day and it really didn’t let up for about … well, I guess it’s still going,” Ewing said. After the success of his first restaurant, Ewing was looking for a business partner to help grow Yolks. He found Christoph Barrow, a hospitality professional with experience operating restaurants in British Columbia. Together, they were able to open two more brick-and-mortar locations for the brand, with their latest B.C. location on Davie Street in Vancouver approaching its one-year anniversary at the end of November. “We sort of tried everything (with that location). We found our identity really well with Davie Street,” Ewing said.

Ottawa expansion will be focused on connecting with community

Their mission as they gear up to the Ottawa opening will be getting to know the area, with the help of their partners at Happy Belly. “Our partner was born and raised (in Ottawa) and knows the city inside and out,” Ewing said. “We put a substantial budget aside … to be able to focus on community engagement.” Barrow and Ewing both say Yolks wants to create a lasting impact in Ottawa, from building business relationships with local food suppliers to doing community outreach. “We’re very community-based. Hastings (location in Vancouver) is probably our best example. There’s a lot of poverty there and across the street, we have an outreach centre … Every Christmas, Christoph and I usually go with a few people to hand out sandwiches to people in the neighbourhood and build a relationship with them,” Ewing said. Ewing said he hopes to do something similar in Ottawa. “We’re not quite big enough to be sponsoring a lot of people yet, but as time goes on, each store will be donating towards community programs. I’m excited to see Yolks on the back of a soccer jersey,” he said.

Southern U.S. influence

Ewing started his brand based on his philosophy of “perfectly poached” eggs – part of the culture he hopes will carry over to Ontario. “For the longest time, our tagline was always ‘perfectly poached’ because we do poached eggs and we do it perfectly. We’ve literally done five million eggs or something like that, so it’s carried into everything,” he said. Ewing says his inspiration for his dishes partly come from his training in French cuisine and partly for his love of southern American cuisine. “I have a real affinity towards … (areas of the) southern U.S. like Louisiana. I love the way they play with breakfast, the sweet and savoury combinations and the real decadence of coffee and a beignet. It’s something we’ve carried across our menu. It’s comfort food where it’s relatable, but it’s not something you’re going to make at home. It’s something special to come out for,” he said. One thing Ewing prides himself on is that everything is made in-house, from the ketchup to the caramel sauce. “Nothing really comes in a jar or a bucket. That’s been something that we made sure of when we’re growing; that’s never going to change. We’re not going to Ontario if they don’t have the same quality of eggs, and if we can’t train (the staff) to do the same thing as (in Vancouver),” Ewing said. He also plans to put a special Ottawa twist on some of the eatery’s offerings. “I’d say 80 per cent of our menu will transfer over, but we’re going to add an Ottawa influence. I’m playing around with iconic Ottawa areas and looking at famous dishes in those areas and the influence from across the river,” Ewing said. He says the drinks menu will also be adapted to reflect the climactic differences between the National Capital Region and the West Coast. The Ottawa Yolks location is expected to open in mid- to late January next year. Ewing and Barrow say they’re also open to other franchising opportunities in Montreal and Toronto if Ottawa is successful, but for now, all their eggs are in the capital’s basket. “We do have some (potential) deals in other provinces, but everything is kind of based on the success of Ottawa right now,” Barrow told OBJ.