One of Yellowknife’s most popular restaurants will be receiving some more financial aid to help recover from the evacuations.
As was the same with many businesses across the North, Yellowknife’s Bullock’s Bistro had to make plenty of tough decisions during last year’s wildfires. Many of those decisions left the restaurant with a large dent in both their finances, and their inventory.
Jo-Ann Martin, owner of Bullocks Bistro, share some details on what the staff experienced during that time.
“Well, of course we had to shut everything down and we had to figure out what we were going to do with all of the product that we had in the restaurant, not knowing how long we would be gone for. Obviously, we had to find a way to store some of the product that we could. We had just received one of our orders in the morning we had shut down, so some of our fresh stuff didn’t survive.”
Martin added that the staff had to throw away most of what they had at the time, and make sure that everything was clean before everyone left. Feeling that the evacuation announcement was coming, the restaurant managed to be completely closed down as the order was given later that day.
While the staff and their families were able to safely leave the city, the timing of the evacuation turned out to be quite poor for Bullocks.
“We were just coming out of the pandemic, we had a fairly good summer, but September to March is usually our busiest months of the year for the aurora tourism and the restaurant. So, we had a lot of reservations and bookings that people had made six months in advance. We were looking forward to it because it was looking like pre-pandemic traffic was coming through.”
Martin said that it felt incredibly surreal to have that amount of business coming through her restaurant again, only for it all to go away, placing Bullocks once again into financial strain.
Once everyone was able to return, restaurant staff tried their best to be some of the first people back in the city. Their first step was to do an assessment and see what needed to be done to get Bullocks back in order. There was plenty of cleaning to be done and spoiled food to be disposed of.
As the staff went about their duties, Martin decided that they were in a good enough spot to honour the reservation of a tourism group that was still planning on coming by. So on September 10th, and for the first time in three weeks, Bullocks was able to welcome customers back in, and just a few days later, they were back to regular operations.
In the months since reopening, Jo-Ann and Bullocks have been able to apply for and receive several financial aid packages from the GNWT and the City of Yellowknife to help make up the difference for the time away. After initially feeling that they wouldn’t qualify, Bullocks has just been approved for the DoorDash Disaster Relief Fund, which will be sending an additional $10,000 to the Bistro.
Martin said that she had initially passed on the DoorDash Fund, since Bullocks doesn’t do delivery, let alone make use of the service. Once she was told by a friend to look into it further, she learned that their Fund is open to all restaurants. She decided to apply, and in Early January, she learned that they had qualified.
Jo-Ann shared what she will be putting that money towards.
“Well, you rack up a lot of bills when you’re in this industry when you don’t have funds available to pay on a regular basis. The funding came in for us in February, so now we’re getting ready to stockpile for out Spring Shut Down here shortly.”
Jo-Ann expressed her gratitude towards everyone who was able to help the restaurant over the last few months.
“It’s great for the business to receive the funding, the help with the buildup of all the expenses, but the peace of mind and the relief it gives us as owners is incredible, and in times like this when everybody is struggling, we’re just very grateful that we were able to access the funding and be on the receiving end.”
