 Why West Lorne?
When I was driving to meet the owners of SoSo's Breakfast Tacos, Kris Melhuish and Jess Watson, for the first time, this was one of the questions I was determined to ask. Part of me was certain the answer would be straightforward: "we grew up here" or "we have family here." But the real story is so much better.
1 Comment
 Ask most people what makes a good sandwich, and they'll talk about the chicken, the bread, maybe the toppings. Rhonda Wachowiak, owner of Buzz Bites, will tell you it's the sauce. Actually, she'll tell you it's always been the sauce, and that's really the whole story of how this St. Thomas restaurant came to be.
"A lot of places had good food, but the sauce often felt like an afterthought," Rhonda explains. "To us, sauce is what brings everything together. It's what takes a good sandwich, bowl, or wrap and makes it memorable." That idea became the foundation for everything Buzz Bites does. Located at 771 Talbot Street, the fast-casual restaurant serves up crispy chicken sandwiches, rice bowls, wraps, tenders, sliders, fries, and sides. But the thing that ties it all together, and the thing customers keep coming back for, is the lineup of homemade honey-based sauces made in-house.  There's a version of this story where Michael Crich never makes the call. Where he sits on the information a little longer, talks himself out of it, and Wildflowers Farm goes to someone else.
But he called on a Friday. At 11:11 in the morning. And everything that came after that phone call has been, by most measures, exactly what it was supposed to be.  A bakery should feel like home.
At Huckleberry Cakes & Coffee, located at 49 Talbot St E downtown Aylmer, owner Ria Renjith hopes that feeling begins the moment customers walk through the door – greeted by the smell of baking, a carefully made coffee, and a menu full of treats made with love. Huckleberry is more than a place to pick up a cake or an afternoon coffee. It is the kind of space for gathering, celebrating special moments, studying, catching up with friends, or treating yourself to something sweet on an ordinary day.  Most people only do this once. They've never packed up a parent's house before, never had to decide what goes and what stays after fifty years of accumulated living. They don't know what they're walking into, and by the time they figure it out, they're already exhausted.
That's where Monica de Wit comes in. Monica is the founder of HUGO and Company, a senior transition and move management company serving families across Southwestern Ontario and beyond. The work is practical on the surface, floor plans, packing, coordinating, hanging pictures, and placing familiar things in unfamiliar spaces. But what families are actually handing over when they call HUGO is the weight of one of the hardest things they'll ever have to do. And what Monica and her team hand back, at the end of a long day, is something that looks and feels like home. |