Moncton Spa Owners Enter Food And Drink Market With New Lounge
MONCTON – The women who brought Nakai Spa Salon Studio to New Brunswick have unveiled a new corner to sit and sip a beverage in, in a historic downtown-Moncton property.
“We were actually looking for a new location for our spa-salon,” said Sharon Kelly, the co-owner of the LOLI Café and Lounge. “We wanted to do more of a smaller location that had a café and cocktail lounge attached to it, so we started looking.”
That search brought them to the historic property at 6 Gordon Street, where the new lounge straddles the line between a place to sit down for coffee and a beer.
“We’re open for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and all of those things. We do things such as flatbreads, charcuterie boards, dips of the seasons, salads, et cetera,” said Kelly.
LOLI has no designs on the more rambunctious side of Moncton’s nightlife and the latest it stays open is 11:00 p.m.
“We don’t want to bring that kind of party there. Nothing good happens past midnight; that’s our saying,” said Kelly, a mother of two. “We want people to be able to have a conversation as an intelligent adult and not have a drink spilled on you, so to speak.”
Locally Sourced, Globally Inspired, Storied History
LOLI sources all the beer, as well as much of its food and coffee, from local businesses that include Tire Shack Brewing Company, Dolma Foods, and Epoch Chemistry. It also serves several drinks that nod to local history.
These drinks include the ‘Queenie,’ a nod to Ethel ‘Queenie’ Murphy. Murphy is the teacher who originally bought the property at 6 Gordon in the early 1900s and was also the first-ever woman to graduate from Dalhousie University. LOLI also serves the ‘1861,’ its take on the Old Fashioned, named after the pre-confederation date construction began on the house that stands at 6 Gordon Street.
LOLI opened last weekend in a 1,100-square-foot berth facing Gordon Street, in the back of the former home of Sounds Fantastic.
The historic property is a Second Empire-style house known as the William S. Torrie House, or Bonaccord Hotel or Bonaccord House. It once sat on the western boundary of the city and was home to soap and candle magnate William S. Torrie.
Kelly noted that LOLI also has a drink on its menu named after the sound and electronics business, which just relocated to the former home of Tommy Hilfiger at the Mapleton Center in December.
The Big Idea
Kelly told Huddle the idea came to her and LOLI co-owner Melanie Lang because they traveled and often ended up at coffee shops and cocktail bars that charmed them to the point of wanting to open something similar – a sophisticated, elegant well-designed space.
“Melanie and I are fortunate in that we are able to go on multiple trips per year. Going around the world and being able to experience cafes in places like Europe and Argentina – anyplace, honestly – it’s just so cozy and so comfortable. There’s a huge market out there and here, we don’t have that,” said Kelly.
“We’re very, very much inspired by them and we spend a lot of our time in Moncton and felt that there wasn’t a place for that here – so why not create that?”
The LOLI name is a reference to the nickname of Kelly’s daughter – While Nakai was a portmanteau of the first two letters of Lang’s children’s names.
Kelly noted the historic building at 6 Gordon was “a lot to take on” and said she and Lang mulled it for a while before taking the leap and buying it, the decisive step in a plan that was about a year-and-a-half in the making.
They purchased it in June 2022, getting the necessary permits and setting to work renovating the property with contractors from the Moncton office of Avondale Construction.
New Spa
Kelly said she and Lang also have plans to open another spa-salon and yoga studio in the same building as LOLI – turning it into a one-stop shop for beauty, relaxation, and wellness.
While LOLI opened in what was once a garage space at the back of the building, the future salon-spa and yoga studio will occupy a 9,000-square-foot berth at the front of the building. It’s something Kelly plans to host a grand opening for in May.
“It will be a really good place for people to just be able to go and prepare for the night. They can come enjoy a cup of coffee or tea after their yoga or before pedicures and manicures or before they get their hair or makeup done,” she said.
Kelly told Huddle the inspiration to open a food and beverage arm came from a place of wanting to provide quality service.
“Our focus is customer service. It’s not necessarily the beauty industry. As entrepreneurs, we just like to focus on customer service,” she said.
“We opened Nakai in 2006, so it’s been a very long time that we’ve been serving our guests, and they trust our customer service because we deliver such an experience at the spa.”
Kelly and Lang are looking to equip the lounge to be a go-to spot for patio coffee or drinks. They plan to build a 1,000-square-foot patio this spring, which will up capacity of the 45-seat lounge with 40 more outdoor seats.
They also plan to bring live jazz to LOLI in the coming months.
“It’s going to be nice to be able to come and listen to jazz, order up a little bit of food, and just catch up with friends,” Kelly said.
Sam Macdonald is a Huddle reporter in Moncton. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].