Covid-19 Delays Opening Of New Cafe, But Halifax Couple Keeps Dream Alive
HALIFAX — April should have been a historic month for Yvonne Scobbie and Graham Wallace.
It should have been the month that, after leaving their jobs and emptying their savings and meticulously planning for almost half a year, they finally opened their dream café together.
But Covid-19 changed that.
When the virus ground Halifax’s economy to a near standstill in March the pair had to rethink most of their plans.
Now, they’re wrestling with how to open their business in the midst of a global pandemic—and wondering if they’ll survive once they do.
‘It just felt like the time’
Things started coming together for Scobbie and Wallace in December after they found a potential space for their café in Halifax’s north end.
As Scobbie recalls, the timing was perfect.
Wallace had just left his job, they had some savings socked away, and their finances were good. When they went in-person to see the space and realized they loved it they “just decided to take the leap.”
Scobbie said the decision was “scary” but that “It just felt like the time.”
“If we didn’t do it then it was like, are we ever going to do it if we just don’t go for it?” she recalled.
Once they had their location locked down things became real. They hired a contractor to work on the interior, Scobbie quit her job, and she and Wallace started working full-time to get their new café opened.
“We kind of just started to get in the swing of things and then Covid-19 hit, so it was definitely a curveball for us,” Scobbie said.
‘Up in the air’
With restaurants closing by the hundreds, it quickly became clear that Scobbie and Wallace would have to delay their opening.
Now, as the full impact of Covid-19 has revealed itself, they realize they’ll have to deal with much more than a simple delay: almost everything about how they planned to open is going to have to change.
“I don’t know, it’s just kind of up in the air, we don’t really know what to expect by the time we open,” Scobbie said.
For now, they’re planning exactly how they’ll work “in the state that Nova Scotia is in” while keeping themselves and anyone who comes into their café safe.
Scobbie said even trying to put together a solid business plan is tough now because things are changing so rapidly.
They’re not sure when they’ll be able to hire employees, exactly what those employees will do, when they’ll be able to have sit-down customers, or what new policies they’ll have to implement in the post-Covid-19 world.
As it stands, all they can say for sure is that they hope to open The Osney Café and Social for takeout in June.
‘Worst time to open a café’
Until they do open, Scobbie and Wallace are left to fret about keeping their business alive and their bills paid.
Since they both quit their jobs to get The Osney running they have no income coming in and have been living off their savings.
“But we’ve definitely been doing that longer than we were expecting,” Scobbie said.
As far as she’s aware they also don’t qualify for any of the government subsidies meant to keep businesses afloat during the pandemic — after all, most are based on previous revenues, and they haven’t even opened yet.
Scobbie said she is pretty good at handling the stress and is usually able to take everything in stride and remain positive.
“But there are still times when even I’m like, ‘oh God, what am I doing?’ Worst time ever to open a café,” she says.
“We’ve had some days where … we get pretty worried about our money because we haven’t been making any,” she admitted. “There have been times when Graham has been like, ‘should we just see if we can just stop and come back to this later?’ And I’m like, no, we’re too far in now, we have to keep going.”
And that’s exactly what they’ve done.
‘Excited to make it happen’
Scobbie said that, even though they’re facing quite a bit of uncertainty, she’s ultimately optimistic about her and Wallace’s dream.
“It feels kind of up in the air, this whole process, but we’re hoping for the best and we’re excited and we can’t wait until we can actually have everyone in,” she said.
She believes people will be eager to go out to eat again once public health restrictions are eased and said she’s already seeing the excitement for The Osney start to build.
She also loves the idea of her and Wallace running their own café together.
“I’m most excited about just doing our own thing. It’s been such a long time of working for people and seeing what I like and dislike about the restaurant and café industry, so it’s really exciting to do what we think is best and kind of grow it from there,” she said.
Ideally, she said, The Osney will have a rotating menu of “more unique and interesting” soups and sandwiches. Their space is small, and she wants to create a cozy, comfortable atmosphere where people will want to enjoy sitting down for a meal.
She envisions a dinner tapas menu on the weekends and eventually getting licensed.
“But we’ll have to see what the state of the world is, I guess,” she said with a chuckle.
Trevor Nichols is a reporter for Huddle in Halifax. Send him an e-mail with your story suggestions: [email protected].