Rebranding can be a tricky thing for restaurants. People develop an appreciation for what a place offers, so when a restaurant gives itself a new identity it has to be careful not to complete change the things people loved about it in the first place.
Tutt Co. Eatery in St. Marys needed to make a change, and while the menu looks different than it did before, Tutt Co. Burger Bar is proving the switch-a-roo seems to be working out okay.
Andrew Tutt, owner and chef at Tutt Co., admitted that change became necessary when the economy slowed down and the cost of everything – food, supplies, staff – forced his hand to swap out one style of restaurant for another.
“The restaurant was being received really well, but we just weren’t getting enough bums in seats,” he said of his Queen Street location. “The town is definitely a little more blue collar, so we felt the economic hit a little harder. Weekends were great, but that was just us playing catch-up from slower nights through the week.”
Step one in making the switch over to the Burger Bar was to exchange a tableside-service model for counter service. Now when you walk in, customers belly up to the bar and read over their menu options. Instead of varied dishes you’d find in a restaurant with waiters asking about wine pairings and desserts, you can now choose between beef, chicken or veggie patties with two different bun options. You have basic toppings (shredded lettuce, tomatoes, onions, a burger sauce and pickles) on each choice, and then you can choose to add more premium toppings or less conventional condiments to your selection. There are sides available, along with a few choices for beverages (alcoholic and otherwise).
Since announcing the change in late January, Tutt said things have been very well received and the mid-week traffic has increased. It doesn’t hurt that your meal starts at $10 for a base burger and doesn’t have to increase drastically from there. People can reasonably expect to have a filling meal for under $20 (if they don’t order alcohol), and it’s a model that Tutt thinks would work well in a Stratford location the way it seems to be taking hold in St. Marys.
“Before I switched things up, the average check would be around $22-$25 dollars per person, and my burger was cheaper than most pubs,” he said. “When you factored in table side service, it just wasn’t paying the bills and about 85 per cent of my sales were burgers and chicken sandwiches. So, it made sense to flip things over and give the people what they wanted at a little bit cheaper price.”
Another bonus is the fact that most of what you’ll be eating comes from locally-sourced suppliers. It was something that Tutt began with the original version of the restaurant and is carrying over to the Burger Bar concept.
“I use only fresh ground beef and fresh chicken, and the toppings are kept simple in part to keep them fresh,” he said. “We cook everything without fillers and it’s done on a griddle so you get that caramelization on there. We source things locally as best we can – Ontario beef from the butcher shop in Toronto, and I’m pretty insistent with my vegetable supplier that they send me Leamington-grown hothouse tomatoes if they can. But our chicken is from Ontario, too, and we get as much as we can locally.”
One of Tutt’s favourite selling points, especially now with a trade war pending between Canada and the US, is his restaurant represents a circular eating ecosystem: he purchases local goods, puts together a fantastic meal for cheaper than what can be bought at an American chain restaurant, and the local economy benefits in the end.
“We’re just doing what we can to give some good local people a chance to enjoy some really good local produce when they go out to eat,” he said. “We might tinker with the menu as things move along, but I think it’s going to stay pretty much as it is right now because that is what people want.”
The Tutt Co. Burger Bar is open Wednesday through Saturday, 11:30 a.m. until 8 p.m. You can order online or in person, and there is limited seating in the restaurant – note that reservations are not accepted.
