The territorial legislature’s new Cliff Café has officially opened.
“It just feels really good to have a new space and to try new ideas. I’ve been looking forward to it for a while,” café operator Chris Zouboules told Cabin Radio.
“We had a mixture of people coming. We had a few tourists, we had some faithful people who used to eat at the museum on a regular basis, we had the people at the [Legislative Assembly] come in, and it has all been positive.”
Zouboules, who previously operated Museum Café at the neighbouring Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, opened the doors to Cliff Café on Tuesday.
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Zouboules is keeping some of his customers’ favourite items from Museum Café, but is also adding new flavours to the legislative menu.
“We brought over the brisket, we brought over the house salad, the caesar salad, the BLT is over here, but we have new stuff in the works right now,” he said.
Cliff Café will be open year-round with a breakfast of fruit and coffee starting at 8am and lunch starting at around 12pm. The restaurant will close at 6pm.
Zouboules said the change of venue was inspired by an urge to try something else. He had been running Museum Café since 2013.
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“When you are in a business like the restaurant business, or hospitality for instance, all of them tend to be constantly changing. If you don’t change with them, you struggle from day to day,” he said.
“I wanted something different, I wanted to go a little bit smaller so that I could put more time into the menu and the business itself, and I think I’ve achieved that.”
Zouboules, preoccupied with his new venture, doesn’t know what will happen to Museum Café – which is now the subject of a request for proposals – but wishes luck to whoever takes over.
“I fully believe that they will find someone that is very comparable to take care of it,” he said.
Zouboules had planned to open Cliff Café at the beginning of July, but postponed the opening day as he remained busy with the final days of his Museum Café operation.
