With COVID-19 pandemic health protocols in place, restaurants and other eateries have had to get a little crafty and creative to serve their customers.
Barnside Brewing Co., the latest craft brewery to open its doors in South Delta, has made that its mission the past month.
Barnside, which opened its doors in mid-January, is a collaboration of four Delta farming families: Ken Malenstyn, Sean Buhr, Brent and Shelley Harris and David Terpsma.
Connecting with the community, giving back and creating partnerships has meant a lot this past month or so said Malenstyn.
“It hasn’t been ideal, but in some respects it has actually been pretty good,” he said. “The community support has been fantastic. Just getting so many people here that come up to the roll-up window, it’s a nice way to serve people. People are biking here and just want to get out of the house. People just want to support a local business, so there is a little bit of silver lining. We still have a sense of community in Ladner and Tsawwassen, so that is heartwarming and makes you feel good.”
He said the first few months when they opened allowed them to get established, so that helped their business model when the pandemic hit.
Getting their products canned at the beginning of April has also allowed Barnside to get into liquor stores and have the ability to have people come and pick-up product.
“That’s been a game changer for us. Having properly canned and branded product allows us to get out into the marketplace,” he said. “That helps us to keep brewing and moving beer and has helped us sell out of the take-out window.”
Barnside has also been working with others in the community on fundraising and other sale ideas.
During the April 25th weekend they raised more than $1,000 in a potato fundraiser for the food bank.
“We basically had an opportunity to get a bunch of potatoes, in terms of size, they were slightly large for processing, so we had customers come over, fill up a bag for $5 and we donated the money to the food bank,” he said. “People love to come and get food direct from the farm. We matched the staff tips and donated that as well.”
Then this past Wednesday, they worked with Il Posto to sell pizza packs at the brewery. The venture was a huge hit with a line-up of cars snaking from the take-out window into the street.
“We under estimated. We thought maybe 20 or 30 and when we posted in social media on Monday it just took off,” Malenstyn said. “It was a crazy couple of hours driving back and forth to get more packs from Il Posto. It wasn’t done to make money, it seemed like a fun thing to do and remind people that all of us are still here and operating. The support was overwhelming.
“We are so fortunate here in Delta having our own sustainable environment. In terms of food security, we have it locally and we should be doing more to support that. I think we all have to find more ways for businesses to support businesses. It just builds a stronger community regardless of the situation.”
