Episode 26 - Phil's Favourites - EatOA! and a high school reunion

In this very special "Phil's Favourites" episode of The London, Ontario Real Estate Podcast, Phil chats with Bridget Fee from EatOA! in London's Old East Village. 

EatOA! is your friendly neighbourhood kitchen located inside Anderson Craft Ales.  They focus on approachable, delicious food with an emphasis on supporting local purveyors.   You can learn more about EatOA here and check out their amazing menu!

Some cool parts of this episode include an awesome list of businesses to visit in London, why being nice matters, and how supporting local is a big deal to both Phil and Bridget. 

More about the podcast:

Learn more about London real estate from Phil and search local listings here - www.philbailey.ca

Phil Bailey is a Sales Representative with HouseSigma Inc. Brokerage in London, Ontario, Canada.

Disclaimer - This podcast should not be taken for any legal or professional advice and is just my opinion based on working as a real estate agent in London, Ontario, and area.  I always recommend speaking to professionals about your specific situation before making any big decisions.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hey everyone, Phil Bailey here back for another episode of the London Ontario Real Estate Podcast. This is a special episode yet again of the podcast where I talk about one of my favorite things in London. So this is Phil's favorites, and I have a very, very exciting guest for you today. Someone who I've known, uh, for a little while. We'll get into that into the podcast soon. I have Bridget fee from e o a. This is episode 26 of Phil's Favorites. So, Bridget, tell us a little bit about yourself. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:33

Well, thank you for having me. Hello. Um, tell you about me. Well, I am from Ville, Ontario, which is very close to St. Thomas where I went to school and I, I believe that we went to high school together, kind of our running joke for the last three and a half years.<laugh>, it seems, um, about myself. I've been in London for 18, no, since I was 18 now. Um, went to college at Shaw, um, took culinary and kind of just bounced around in a couple of dis different hospitality settings in this city itself and worked at the casino. That was my last, like, long, long job. Did that for about six years as a food and beverage supervisor and got a like, nice little buyout package and decided that I wanted to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. And fast forward probably like six years and now I am running a small food business with my husband inside of Anderson Crafts, which is located in Oldies Village at 10 30 Elias Street. Um, and yeah, I have two cats that are awesome. Um, and that's like, that's the Cole's notes of Bridget, I guess right there.

Speaker 1: 1:59

<laugh>. Well, and, and I have to be honest, we did go to high school together and it is a running joke that we, that we say forever, that uh, when I think we first, uh, saw each other after a few years, um, it was interesting cuz I was like, I'm pretty sure I know that, uh, that lady over there and then I was eating your delicious food and then realized, oh wow, this is a good, uh, good connection. And then, you know, as life, uh, works itself out, uh, everything kind of just came together beautifully. So I get to eat amazing food, drink amazing beer, and, uh, hang out with, uh, Bridget more, more often now, which is awesome. Um, so, so Bridget, tell us a little bit more about your business. You know, what is kind of the, the style of, of the business and, and, uh, I know you talked about the location, which is great, uh, so people know how to visit you, but I know I've eaten your food many, many times and I've never had any disappointment at all. It's always been amazingly delicious. So tell me about, uh, kind of the inspiration for, uh, for the business,

Speaker 2: 2:57

Honestly. So the best, best way to describe it, and I might roll into another form of question that you were gonna have for me. So my husband is also in the culinary world. He is a chef, that's how we met. Um, and he was working at Fank, loves the job, it's a great job. He gets to connect with the students and it's amazing. But he was kind of like feeling like he was lacking the creative side of, um, the chef world. And that's the best way to describe it. So we started a little catering business on the side, happened to just randomly do, um, a I think it was like a 40th birthday party and we catered it at the brewery and that was way back when the family members were pretty much like working the bar, working the whole entire place. There was a couple of staff members at that point in time. We fed them, they loved it. Fast forward, maybe like a year and Gavin reached out and said he wanted to put in a kitchen, uh, and he wanted us to do it. So with two full-time jobs it was like, uh, okay, but just like with this neighborhood of O E V, it was just like, we can't pass this up. So, and I mean we've lived here the whole time, so it was just like, what are we missing? And what we were missing was a place to go grab a drink and a snack. And that's kind of why I really wanted to do it selfishly. Um, so eat Away. My sister came up with the name, we racked our brains for like four weeks and then Katie was just like, what about Eat Away? And it was like, okay, which is a play on EEO a east of Adelaide. Um, we're in a brewery. So for us it was like, we need to do approachable food that goes well with beer. Um, we try to get beer in as much as we can, like for the product itself. Um, and it's like, I guess the best way to say like a, a fun play on pub fair, but like elevated and if we do anything, like anything, so like bow buns, we're not just gonna do your traditional one because we're gonna let people who traditionally do those foods, do them well and we'll just always put our own little twist to it. So I guess for the best answer, eat Ooa is fun, pub fair with crazy twists and we just do like the randomest things, but we have a lot of fun doing it and it's a tiny, tiny, tiny kitchen and a tiny team. So,

Speaker 1: 5:33

No, it's great. And you make delicious, uh, delicious food coming out of, of, of a small space. I know. But you've also, I think the creativity of it is always something that always interests me too, because you know, someone that, you know, I can cook very, very, very poorly. Um, but, uh, maybe, maybe Emily would say different, but sometimes I think, you know, sometimes I can pull off a few things. But it's cool when you're out to be able to have something that pairs well with, you know, whatever beer you're drinking, drinking and something that is really kind of approachable, which is interesting to me cuz that's basically, you'll see a common theme on Phil's favorites where if I don't feel comfortable, you know, ordering off the menu, I'm probably not gonna go there very often. And, and you know, speaking of that too, like it, it's some, some people in the maybe listening to podcast aren't, you know, aren't from London or are new to London too. And it's definitely Old East Village is somewhere I always recommend people check out in the city. It is changed drastically<laugh> you know, over the years. And I think it's really cool that you have that kind of vibe, uh, with, with, you know, places like, like, like really e o a and Anderson's and, and being able to kind of explore the, the old, the oldies village and really have that neighborhood feel. You know, it's one of the things that whenever I walk into some of those, maybe I drink a little bit too much crap beer sometimes, but there's something about going into some of those, some of the places like, like e o a where we really, you know, everyone kind of knows your name. It has like a Cheers kind of atmosphere,<laugh> and there's a lot of places like that where I haven't had that. And I'll be funny, it's funny cuz like I literally haven't had a lot of that since even like going to high school<laugh> like we talked about, right? Where you like, you like have friends Yeah. And they're, but they're also similar to you because they're in a way that, you know, that whole neighborhood is kind of approachable<laugh>, right? It's Oh, for sure. It's changed a lot. I know I have a lot of clients that have have bought, uh, in, in the area. Um, you know, you're dealing with some, some houses that it's, that have that kind of first time home buyer feel to them, which is great, right? So this gives you a, an kind of an again, an approachable real estate experience as well. So, um, thank you. Yeah, no, thanks for sharing that about that. And I think you kind of talked about kind of why you decided to go into that particular, uh, business as well. So one thing on Phil's favorites Bridget, that I like to talk about is just London, right? Because obviously like I work in London, I live in London, I really love London and, and many things about it. I think London sometimes can get a bit of a, oh it's, you know, maybe it's not as exciting as going to Toronto. But now that I'm as old as I am, I don't really have the energy. So I like to kind of spend time in my own city as much as possible. So what's something really, what's one thing you love about Lennon? This Phil's favorites, but let's talk about, you know, Bridget's favorites for a second here.

Speaker 2: 8:16

Honestly, I was racking my brain and I, that probably doesn't sound like a great answer coming from me, but because I have been here for, I would say a long time, like the, I know people who've honestly like were born here, grew up here, went to public school, went to high school, whether they left or not, and then came back. Um, but for me, I've just, I guess I've seen a lot of changes cuz I was just, again, racking my brain to answer the question. And thinking about when I was in college, what did I love the most? I loved Richmond Row, obviously. Um, going to call the office, uh, going to gts, not the one on the beach, but the one at York and Richmond and spending a lot of, of fun nights going to retro night, I call the office and doing that kind of stuff. And then you kind of fast forward into the late twenties, early thirties and it was finding this area of London and the Western Fair Market and the parks like Meadow Lilly. I grew up, like my mom was not the biggest fan of St. Thomas, so she made us do a lot of stuff in London. She was from Byron. So it makes sense just spring bake Park alone, taking like the bike trails and stuff like that as well. You can kind of get lost in a city that you kind, you might think, oh, I know every little nook and cranny of this place, but there's always somewhere or like a restaurant or something and you're just like, what is that? Where is it? And somebody will be like, oh, it's been here for 25 years. So to me now, because obviously the downtown has changed a bit and like o E V is changing with all these new young families coming in, Wortley on its own has like that core downtown feeling area just on their own with all those restaurants and bars. I just love the constant change. There's some stuff that like stays, but there's just always something to explore, always something you didn't know existed. And I feel like for London being, when I say it's small, I know it's not small, but I love the fact that there's always something I'm, I'm not aware of. Like, I don't know how else to say that, but I just love that there's constant surprises. And I do love the fact that like, I think we're like, I don't know what the actual terminology is, but we're a test city essentially for, I mean, they're more so chains and stuff like that, but that's something that's always racked my brain. But I guess because we get so many students and stuff like that, I, I must have something to do with that, why people come here and try to test things out. But yeah, the constant change, finding new things and like the neighborhood nook and cranny thing I really do like and just exploring

Speaker 1: 10:54

It. Yes. No, that's a, that's an awesome answer. Yeah, I think, I think that's something too, it's, I've heard sometimes I don't even know what's in London and then I hear about something I'm like, oh yeah, I've heard of that, but I haven't tried it. So I try to, you know, go out there. And again, part of the podcast in doing this is kind of supporting local as much as we can. Um, but it's funny you mentioned, you know, call the office and, uh, I ha I have, I used to go there quite often and go to some of these shows and it was, you know,$5 to go see a, a band and those are some of my best experiences, you know, growing up and, you know, remember Call the Office and then, you know, the, the embassy as well. And I have these two artworks I got from this place. I'll, I'll, they're actually in, uh, the Western Fair Market called Spruce Moose. And it's this awesome guy named Joel, who's an amazing person. And uh, and I buy pretty much everything in my house from there and all my client gifts from there too. So I definitely would check that place out too. But maybe I can get Joel on, maybe I can see if he'll do it. Yeah. But, um, they're too, but I have the embassy and the call the office and I have them in our, our living room and every time I see those I, you know, I think about a, about that, right? Yeah. And like, you know, I had this like, just all these really cool experiences of of of being able to, you know, really witness some of these cool bands coming through, but also just that whole kind of atmosphere of, uh, of these live music locations in, in London and, you know, excited already for, for the summer concert series. As much as maybe I won't be able to go to too many concerts anymore,<laugh> given my, my, my situation of having a kid now. But in general it's like, you know, I'm, I'm just excited to have all those things and I think, you know, we appreciate a lot of the, uh, a lot of the same things as well. So what is, you know, are, are there, you know, you mentioned, you know, some of the stuff you love about, about London. Is there a, a place that, you know, if you had to make a, uh, a Bridget's favorites, uh, that you'd put on, on the list as well? I know this is hard, I put people on the spot when I say this, but doesn't have to be your number one. Doesn't even have to be your to, but just something that you think would be cool if you know from a favorite place that you like to visit in in London.

Speaker 2: 12:57

So for me, myself and my, like myself and my husband, we are, we go for food, we go for drinks. Like if we're, we work a lot. So when we're going out, that's what we do. And we are just extraordinarily lucky to know a couple of people who happen to own or manage some of my favorite places in London. Um, so for me, like Madre Pizzeria Madre, which is should be opening in their new location in like the next couple of weeks, we'll say. Um, one of my favorite places to go, like you had said, when you walk into Anderson, it's kind of like your cheers moment, right? They, although they are changing locations, I'm sure it's still gonna have that same feel. I just love going there, having a couple of pizzas, getting a drink, or Sagi and Wortley. Bri and Nam are doing a fantastic job, um, making delicious food that like when I sit there and I eat it, I just constantly get blown away. And like, hunter, I'm just like you said one, but I'm gonna have like six

Speaker 1: 14:04

<laugh>. That's fine. You go ahead. Name them all please. I need, I need also recommendations for myself. So. Well,

Speaker 2: 14:09

And Hunter is just Hunter and Co uh, downtown is just, it's awesome. It's owned by the other bird. Um, they're a restaurant corporation and I think they're based out of Hamilton, but our friend Shannon, she manages it and it's just like their customer service, their food, their drink, the atmosphere, it's just untouchable. It kind of makes you feel like you're not in London, which is nice every once in a while. Um, but yeah, those are like my top three for sure. There's so many cafes too that I can just go sit in and like 10 eighteens one because it's three blocks away from my house and two blocks away from where I work, so. That's amazing. But yeah, those are like my frequent spots for sure. Um, um, and kind of going along with your first, not your first question, but the question you just asked, because we had so many music venues and we did lose a lot of them, um, during Covid, the resurgence of music venues and how they're happening at like the Soci Bowl. I hadn't gone to one yet, and Kyle and I just went to 1, 2, 3 weeks ago and it was amazing. So it's kind of like, I would even put that on one of my favorite spots now. So just the adaptability of businesses and going, okay, well we're losing a lot of spaces. Let's, let's try to recreate something here. So yeah, those are my, like, top places for sure.

Speaker 1: 15:29

Yeah, no, I, I was excited by the Soci Bowl as well because I could bowl underneath of someone who was playing live music and I just thought that experience, I it, I'll be honest, it made me exceptionally nervous that somehow I was gonna let go of the bowling ball at the most inopportune time and and hit them. Yeah. But I avoided that during the entire night. And yeah, it's been a little while since I've been there, but yeah, they have some really cool bands coming through, uh, as well and some that I've, I've been really excited about in the, in the future too, so. That's good. That's awesome. You know, that's a, that's an amazing list. And uh, I, you know, Bridget, you know, I know we went to high school together,<laugh>, but uh, it seems like there's still some, uh, connection there because a lot of those were similar ones that would've been on, you know, on, on my list as well. Uh, and some of my favorite places to go in London for sure. So one last question really on the podcast, I like to ask everybody this cuz I like to stay as positive, as positive, as positive as possible. So what are you most excited about in 2023, Bridget?

Speaker 2: 16:34

Well, for Billy, that is quite the question. Um, I would say Businesswise, I am just really excited to see like January, February hospitality people just write those months off. They, they're, they're usually kind of like slow doom and gloom. People spent all their money. I'm just excited to see what happens in the spring and the summer. Um, you know, we've made it through the last, is it been three summers for Covid now?

Speaker 1: 17:04

I think you're

Speaker 2: 17:05

Right. So this'll be like fourth essentially. Yeah. Which is, or is this the third? I don't know, we've all lost track of time<laugh>, but yeah, I'm just really excited to see what the spring and summer bring like cuz last summer everybody was out, people were leaving, people were camping, people were traveling because you couldn't, so I think a lot of us had this idea in our heads that it was gonna be bumping all summer cuz it was Bump in the first two summers cuz you couldn't go anywhere. Um, so for me, yeah, I'm very excited to see Eat Away's growth. I'm excited to see new customers. I'm excited to see, I'm trying to find the, a community build like luckily, like I said, knowing a couple of people like Jess and Matt who will Madre and Bria, Nam and Katie from 10 18 and all of these people who are awesome just kind of seeing the hospitality try to form like a community again, you know, it, we're all out to make and earn money to pay our staff and pay our bills, but in the end we're all doing something that's very hard to do, um, has so many challenges. But the second I can walk into a place and just be like, like I'll go to beer lab on Mondays cuz they have Industry Mondays right now and there's nowhere else open on Mondays and just go hang out with Nick and Kyle and just talk about the fact that maybe last week was brutal, but it's just, you get to bounce that stuff off of each other. So I'm really excited for all of us to have a great spring in the summer to see what the fall brings. I'm just excited to kind of just keep Trugging along and I'm hoping for the best. And on a personal level, I'm going to France in Italy and I've never been to Europe and I'm going in April and I bawled my eyes out because I was just so excited when I bought my plane tickets and I just had to say that about myself.<laugh>.

Speaker 1: 19:00

No, that's amazing. I I did hear, I heard that. No, I heard that news and I'm super excited, uh, for you cause I know, you know, anyone working in the industry that, uh, that you, that you work in needs some, some vacation time. So, uh,<laugh> it'll be, it'll be well, well deserved I'm sure. And, um, yeah, that, that's awesome. That's, uh, that's, that's really good. I, I it would be, I would like to see that as well. I think in terms of the community building. Cause I think for a long time I was talking to someone this morning, you know, for a, for a while there I would show a house and then I would come home, I would show a house and I'd come home, which is great. But there are times when, you know, I needed that personal connection with, you know, maybe other real estate agents and, and it can be a kind of a lonely business sometimes when you're, you know, I'm a real estate agent and I work by myself, you know, so I kind of run my own business. So when I come home, it's sometimes important I think to kind of get that social aspect now. You know, it's important, important to, uh, to always be at my house as much as possible.<laugh> but<laugh> in general, it is nice to be able to kind of go out and, you know, I know we saw you last week at the, uh, Anderson's, uh, baby group as well, which is really, really fun. Um, and it's cool to kind of get that community building again, really across London and, you know, learn about some cool places that, you know, we can visit. And a lot of time right now it's, it's lunchtimes for us, but, uh, that's been, that's been really kind of nice to be able to do that. So, so Bridget, tell us one more time how we can find e oa. I just wanna make sure people know, you know, where you are in London and, uh, just so they're, they can go visit you.

Speaker 2: 20:33

We are located inside of Anderson Craft Hills, which is on 10 30 Elias Street in the Oldies Village. Um, we have masses of masses, massive amount of parking. We're right beside Junction climbing Center. You can do so much in like, what under 15, not 15 steps, but in a very small area. You've got a climbing center, you've got a record shop, you've got a brewery, you've got food inside of a brewery. So we got a lot going on in our little area. And the one thing I was gonna say, it doesn't have anything to do with what you just asked me,<laugh>, but I thought about like, what do you love about London? And I remember the day that you and Emily came to the brewery and you were sitting outside. I literally like gave you your food and we were chatting and I don't know if we happened to realize it then, but then Emily started working at the brewery and I think that was, is that the summer after? Or something like that. And then I find out that her father was my uncle's, um, paramedic partner for who knows how long. So not only like it that is what London is, even though we're not in St. Thomas where we, the two of us grew up, we had that like vortex bring us back in again. So that is the one thing I do love. You're kind of like six degrees from somebody in London, it seems all the time.

Speaker 1: 21:58

<laugh>. That's funny. Yeah. Cause we, we actually talked about that the last Phil's favorites as well in the sense of like everyone, I always try to build my business and I know you do as well with just like a sense of integrity and kind of doing what you say you're gonna do and you know, being a good, being good with your, your customers and your friends, which I don't really know how those are separate to me anymore.<laugh>, they're kind of the same. But what I find interesting about that is it in a place, especially like London, if you go the other way, it's not good for you. And I've seen that a few times where, you know, the, the reputations and stuff. So I'm gonna try to stay as positive as I can on the podcast, but it's, if you get that positive kind of attitude and that kind of warmth that I know that you and I try to bring to our businesses, it can, you know, really, really help you in a, in a lot of ways. And it's amazing to see that because it's, it's, it's interesting to me how you meet someone that you haven't seen for years again and then, you know, then there's this huge connection with other people in our lives and just because we happen to, you know, grow up in a similar space. Right. And it's just so nice to see that. And, you know, I'm so glad that we got to, uh, to reconnect over the past, uh, few years, Bridget. Yeah. And uh, and I really appreciate you coming on the podcast because this has been something that I've been trying to talking to you about probably for longer than most people. And, uh, I'm always thinking of, you know, how I can support local and also support, uh, my friends who have amazing, uh, businesses, uh, throughout the city. So thank you so much Bridget, for coming on the London Ontario Real Estate Podcast. This was a segment of Phil's favorites. Please go check out e ooa, which is located inside of Anderson Craft ales. And I thank you all for listening to the podcast. Have a great day.