Popular Fredericton Restaurant Finds Success In North Side Expansion With Picaroons
FREDERICTON – The popular downtown restaurant, 540 Restaurant and Bar, opened its second location on the north side at the invitation of Picaroons and it’s been a success, despite the obstacles of Covid-19.
540 North, part of the Roundhouse with Picaroons on Union Street, invites customers familiar with their Queen Street location to visit for a different dining (and drinking) experience.
“Hopefully people are going to both locations in a week and not just one or the other,” said Ted Jones, a co-owner of 540.
540 NORTH, which opened in June, offers a more casual dining experience where customers order at the counter or outside window and have their food prepared within 20 minutes, while the Queen Street location remains a more traditional sit-down restaurant.
The Roundhouse offers plenty of space for outdoor dining, and the interior that was once a warehouse offers plenty of space for customers to enjoy their meals and grab a beer from Picaroons.
“It’s branding, really,” Jones says. “If you can get it down at one location people like that and then you can take that, put a little spin on it and try something else within the fold of that name.”
540 NORTH became a part of the Roundhouse after Picaroons approached them to take over the space.
“We just said, ‘yeah, sure, let’s do it!’” said Jones.
As with many business owners, the Covid-19 pandemic led to a change of plans with the original March opening shifting to June.
In April when the province was shut down, Jones said uncertainty led to 540 preparing ready-to-go meals for Simply for Life and later evening takeout when the province gave them the green light.
“It was really interesting rolling with the punches through the spring and early Summer,” Jones said. “It was something. One day, we were closing down wondering, ‘Is this it? Are we going to shut down and never open again?’”
Jones says despite the challenges and unexpectedness of operating during a pandemic, they never hesitated with opening the new space.
“It was just so perfect,” said Jones. “The space was going to be perfect beforehand, but that space, in particular, lent itself well to Covid restrictions.”
The outdoor space and large warehouse interior made for easy social distancing and the team adapted quickly to new regulations. This made the space a popular restaurant during the summer as customers eager to leave their homes were able to gather with proper regulations in place.
Sean Dunbar, owner of Picaroons, said working with 540 NORTH out of the Roundhouse has gone “remarkably well.”
“At the Roundhouse, the foodservice and the brewery have been so busy from June until the end of October,” said Dunbar. “Neither of us has had time to lift up our heads and think about anything else. It’s just providing service to people who pop in.”
While the idea of having two businesses operating under the same roof seems a bit unusual, Dunbar says customers have embraced the model.
“People have adapted to the casualness of it so there’s no pressure, there’s no hovering, there are no servers,” said Dunbar. “It just has worked remarkably well completely by accident.”
Picaroons’ location in Saint John offers a similar model with neighbour Pomodori’s pizza offerings. It’s commonplace for customers of Pomodori to bring their pizza over to Picaroons and vice versa.
By necessity and the more convenient nature of the North Side location, the menu at 540 NORTH differs from the Queen Street location.
While there is crossover between the menus, the Queen Street location offers a plethora of entrées ranging from steak and salmon to mac and cheese, while the North Side location focuses the menu on sandwiches, burgers, and bowled dishes like butter chicken and pad thai.
Jones says he no longer believes in themed menus and prefers to allow the team to develop new menus based on what they’re interested in making.
“Let’s sit down and see what [the team] likes to make and what [they will] have pride in and from that, decide what we can put in the menu,” said Jones, who also noted the team has spent this week developing new menu items. “You have to take their strengths and work with them.”
Liam Floyd is a reporter for Huddle. Send him story suggestions: [email protected].