Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Cheynelle Fraser and Elisha Andrewsky. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Cheynelle and Elisha, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with what makes profitability in your industry a challenge – what would you say is the biggest challenge?

We opened Creekside during the decline of covid, knowing we were taking a bit of a risk but also knowing that Wellington was in desperate need of a really great brunch spot. We created our business plan based on what we knew the County to be pre-covid and felt confident we would be swimming in revenue from the get go… then came inflation, a drop in tourism and finding out how hard the government makes it for small businesses to survive.

We have a lot of guests congratulating us on business and how busy we seem to be, but what they don’t see is the amount of money exiting our bank account daily. Food costing has become a chore. With the rising cost of food, we are constantly second guessing if we should be raising prices, but also not wanting to become unaffordable. Trying to give staff hours while also not killing our labor has been tough. in the winter. And anyone who owns a business knows there are always surprise bills, fees or something that requires money.

In Prince Edward County we heavily depend on tourism and unfortunately tourism has been down the last few years. It makes it really hard to budget and estimate what’s to come with no consistency since Covid.
We are very lucky we have amazing staff and local regulars who support us.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

We, Cheynelle and Elisha, had come together to open the Drake Devonshire in 2014. Fast forward to 2020, Elisha had already moved on to run the Midtown Brewing Company restaurant, while Cheynelle was one foot out the door at the Devonshire. Covid was finally calming down and we both were itching to move on and do our own thing…. its crazy how everything aligned. From the location that became available for Creekside, to the staff, our Chef and the local excitement for a new Brunch spot.

Our main goal was to offer really great food with a decent price point and expand from there. We do our best to use as many local ingredients as possible. We are located right beside Sprigglen Meat Market who makes our delicious sausage patty’s for our Patty Melt, we have a tasty Tête Carrée cheese from Lighthall on our popular Dutch Baby and all our bread comes from Elmbrook Farms,
In our peak season, we are open for breakfast/lunch 7 days a week and this year will be offer dinner 4 nights a week.

We are expanding our grab and go options this summer so if you don’t want to sit and enjoy our famous Creekside Benny with a gin + basil Caesar, you can grab a latte, sandwich and sweet treat for the road.

We also sell some our of local favorites like our house made Creekside Hot Sauce and the ‘Best Damn Jam’, literally the tastiest jam that pairs well with our local Elmbrook Sourdough toast ;)

Creekside Cafe also has 2 short term accommodation suites above the restaurant. They are newly renovated and the perfect location for a getaway to PEC. Right downtown in Wellington.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

We both have 20+ years experience in this industry and have worked in all sorts of establishments. From seedy dark bars that smell like a mix of beer and dirty mop water, to pristine, water front properties lavished in art and expensive wine offerings. One thing we both agree on is how to treat your staff. There is managing your staff and over managing your staff…. if your staff leave work everyday feeling spent, angry, emotional and unsupported, they are not going to bring their best efforts with them to the next shift. This is where it becomes about working just ‘for the money’. If you want staff that not only work for their money but also love coming to work, you will have a fun, loyal team that you can trust and this will make your life easier. Treating staff like they are on the same level as you empowers them to feel good about making decisions and giving their best service to guests. We never feel we are above our staff. We all started from the bottom and know what it takes to get to where we are now, so if we can play a part in building our staff up so they can reach their full potential and possibly take over our business or start their own one day, that is what matters to us.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

This is still a learning curve for us! We are lucky to have a friendship with a Digital Creator who has a lot of experience and a large following so she pokes us when we are sitting idle on our social media. We do notice the more often we are posting, the more followers we get every time so I think the main lesson is to keep posting, stay relevant and do the things you don’t want to… like get Tic Toc. That is our next adventure!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.creeksidepec.com
• Instagram: creekside_cafe_pec
• Facebook: Creekside Cafe + Suites PEC

Image Credits
Lauren McPhilips