Imagine going out to dinner on a Friday night. Now imagine there is no wait for a table, good food is delivered by a server who can describe everything on the menu, and the icing on the cake is the bill — it is the same or less than expected.
According to Stuart Raymond, owner of Simon’s Gallery Grill on Durham Street, that’s exactly what diners can expect at his restaurant, or any other locally-owned restaurant in town.
“People will venture out, maybe not in droves, to come and eat in places like ours, because they know they’re going to find something prepared either with local products or very fresh, and it’s all priced in the same ball park,” Raymond said.
To make Sudbury’s dining scene flourish, Raymond said people need to support local eateries at the same rate or more regularly than they dine at “big box” restaurants. In turn, more local shops will open up, and dining in Sudbury will keep getting better.
“I’m a believer in the more restaurants, the healthier it is,” he said. “It’s not really competition. If you’d like to use the word competition, it’s healthy competition.”
“I’m a believer in the more restaurants, the healthier it is. It’s not really competition.
Stuart Raymond,
owner of Simon’s Gallery Grill
However, Raymond said the only way the local dining scene will improve is if the community supports these venues.
“We can’t all share the small amount of diners left over from the big box stores,” he said. “These big box stores are one of the biggest stumbling blocks for smaller restaurants to flourish. There’s only so many dining dollars in the city.”
Even though more and more restaurants geared to different tastes are popping up in all parts of the city, Raymond believes chain restaurants are still thriving.
“It seems the further north you go, the more concentrated these chain restaurants are,” he said. “They’re everywhere.”
When comparing Sudbury to other northern Ontario communities in terms of the number of independent restaurants, he said places like Sault Ste. Marie are on par with us, but North Bay seems to be far, far ahead.
“(North Bay’s) got a very vibrant restaurant scene,” he said. “Very vibrant — much healthier than this one. And what’s the difference? Just the mentality of the people going out to eat.”
But Raymond said the future of Sudbury’s dining scene is heading in the right direction, slowly but surely.
“I definitely think it’s on the upswing, but I do still believe its going to take another five or 10 years for it to truly blossom,” Raymond said.
Michael Cullen, director of the Sudbury Restaurant and Food Service Association, said Sudbury’s dining scene is at a “tipping point.”
He said some local restaurants are doing “very innovative, very cutting-edge stuff” that’s helping to bring attention to Sudbury.
“We’re going to be slowly recognized as a destination for dining,” he said.
He said the hindrance to the growth of Sudbury’s dining scene is the layout of the city.
“Because we’re geographically challenged to some degree, it’s difficult sometimes to get people to understand that collectively, we’re stronger.”
But according to Cullen, once restaurant owners start banding together, the rise will happen more steadily.
Cullen said there are a number of talented chefs in the city, and by restaurant owners collectively branding Sudbury as a hospitality hot spot, more exposure will be brought to local eateries.
“Competition is good,” Cullen said. “It’s important as a chef. As a chef, it’s important for me to look at what restaurateurs are doing and learn from that and get some ideas. I do it every day — every day when I go for lunch.”
Mark Gregorini, owner of Frank’s Deli and Ristorante Verdicchio, said Sudbury is still in the middle of a “transition stage, going from chain restaurants to independent.”
He said as the variety of restaurants in Sudbury expands and grows, it will become more of a destination for diners.
“Everybody always talks about going to Toronto,” he said. “You can sit here in Sudbury and have an amazing dinner with different styles of cuisine and really have a good night out, and you don’t have to travel much.
“There’s no reason why Sudbury — which people call a small northern town, a mining town — couldn’t do anything just as well as a big metropolitan city. We have enough experience and skill and talent up here that we could pull it off easily.”
Along with adding different ethnic restaurants and more variety to Greater Sudbury’s menu, Gregorini said knowledgeable staff and servers at eateries will help add to the vibrancy of Sudbury’s dining scene.
“People are looking to have a dining experience, rather than just being served,” he said.
He said it’s important to have servers who know the menu inside and out, so they can help diners make good use of their money.
“When people go out, they want to make sure they pick something they’re going to be ‘safe’ with so they don’t feel like they’re getting ripped off.”
Of course, he said all items on the menu have to be made well too. He said he inspects every uneaten dish that returns to the kitchen to find out why it wasn’t eaten.
Gregorini said the personal touches independent restaurant owners give their customers are above and beyond what chain restaurants can provide.
“Our family believes that any restaurant that we do, we should be looking at people as if they’re coming into our own home,” he said. “You want to have that personal feel to it.”
