The Little Brown Jug in Goodsoil is closing on September 2. (Facebook/The Little Brown Jug in Goodsoil)

By Nikita Ganovicheff

Shifting Focus

Goodsoil’s Little Brown Jug closing next week

Aug 26, 2019 | 2:08 PM

The Little Brown Jug in Goodsoil is closing its doors on September 2.

The restaurant has served homestyle cooking to residents of Goodsoil and Meadow Lake Provincial Park campers for the past five years.

“It was fabulous and I’ve made some incredible relationships and met some wonderful people. I’m going to miss them,” owner Chelsey Vermette said.

Vermette decided to close the restaurant because she wants to focus on her catering business, Vermette Custom Catering and Food Services. Her mother who helps run the restaurant is retiring.

When Vermette and her family moved to Goodsoil, she wanted to rebuild her catering business. She purchased the building on Main Street and renovated the kitchen for her business originally, however opted to open a restaurant instead.

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“It was a revenue generating thing to start off and then we started to gain popularity and got a bit of a following. We have a reputation of being a pretty good food service place or restaurant,” Vermette said. “I let my food speak for itself.”

Vermette said an important part of the restaurant was having open interactions with her customers.

“We opened up the kitchen so I could interact with my clients. That’s one of my biggest things. I’m a people-person and I like to interact with them and I’ve built some fantastic relationships,” Vermette said.

She also contributes the authentic homestyle cooking and making almost all the food by hand to her restaurant’s success.

“I always have been that way. It may be a little bit more work but it really contributes to the experience that people have when they come here,” Vermette said.

Vermette will continue her catering business in the same building and was recently hired as Director of Food Services at FireSong Resort on Fowler Lake.

“You don’t realize that the focus is shifting but it shifted and now it needs to shift back,” Vermette said.

Vermette will be cooking one of her most popular items, fried chicken, at the supper buffet on Sunday, September 1. She said she may open the restaurant for lunches on occasion in the future, but nothing is planned at the moment.

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nikita.ganovicheff@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @Nikitaganov