While lockdown after lockdown robbed him of customers for his food, Valente stepped up his plans to become a pot entrepreneur.
Many eateries from Corner Peach in Chinatown to Oz Kafe in the ByWard Market to Das Lokal in Lowertown to Zolas in Bells Corners saw value in offering customers pantry items and non-perishables — not to mention wine, beer and cocktails after the Ontario government last year allowed restaurants to sell bottles to go, provided that food was sold with them.
The restaurant has never re-opened during the pandemic, and the store’s catering business has been “pretty much demolished,” Nicastro says.
That service “was a missing key in our business to make it work,” Nicastro says.
Now he operates ByWard Wine Market from inside Lollo, offering almost 200 wines, plus snacks that make the bottle purchases legal.
I can’t figure it out,” says Valente, the son of restaurant-owning Italian immigrants who himself has run a small empire of Italian restaurants in Ottawa since the early 1990s, most notably the Fratelli restaurants with his late brother, Robert.
Valente was able to move the coffee business last fall to a location in Stittsville that was cheaper by more than half.
Valente applied for his cannabis permit about six months before the pandemic began, but had to be patient for the paperwork to come through.
Pursuing a suburban strategy, he has opened two more BlueBird locations, preferring to build his own brand rather than open a pot-shop franchise.
“When I reflect on it, how much we dipped into our savings, it’s actually crazy,” Valente says of what it took to start his chain of cannabis stores.
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