Hi, everyone.

Welcome to Sudbury Interviews.

Today we have Bev Wills and she's the general manager of Finn Mccool's Pub on Regent Street in the South End and we'll be discussing her career in in the restaurant Business Today.

Just before we begin, you can find us on Sudstown and join the conversation.

If you would like to be a guest on the show, please reach out.

Hey, Bev.

Thanks for coming on.

No problem Danny, happy to be here.

It's really nice of you.

I was kind of hounding you for a couple of weeks there to to do it.

So thank you again.

My pleasure.

So how did you get in this business of being in the restaurants and pub business?

Oh my goodness.

Well, I've done this all my life actually, it seems.

Anyway, I started when I was 14 and in the back of house, like in the kitchen.

I started as a dishwasher in North Bay at a restaurant and they were getting really, really busy one night so they called me up to the line to ask me to help out and I guess I picked it up pretty quickly.

So I thought, OK, I guess I can do this.

And here we are, like 40 years later.

So did they have those dish pits in like with the the machines and all that?

When I first started doing dishes because I'm really old, it was the three, the three tub system, right?

So I was, I was washing by hand, rinsing by hand and drying by hand.

That was back in the early 80s.

So I think the, I think, I think that restaurant that I worked at when we changed locations got one of those automatic dishwasher.

So that was a bit of a game changer.

But I mean, dishwasher is tough gruelling work.

And then you become a line cook, that's even tougher and even more gruelling.

And when they ask you to come in to do a dish shift, you're almost like, yeah, I'll take the night off and get paid.

Sure, no problem.

Not that it's not hard.

It's just like doing something different was welcoming.

But yeah, that's that's how I got going.

And you're you're not going to set the world on fire with your paychecks.

That's for sure when you get into the hospitality business.

But some, you know, you just, if you enjoy it and you're a social butterfly like I can be, it's a perfect spot to to be.

So were you guys doing like tours or not tours but like Jays games or something like that a couple years back?

We started doing a baseball game to the to the home opener.

I think 2018 was our first year and I just thought I could put it together on a whim.

I had no idea what I was doing.

Contacted the Labatt Rep and because baseball is sponsored by Labatt and asked him if I could get some tickets and he thought he could get me some.

So I called the bus line and things just kind of got into, moved into place for me.

So we, we, our first one, we'd had about 30 people.

Now we do about 48 people every year.

We had to take two years off one for COVID and then the following year we just didn't have enough notice when, when the, when the fields opened back up, I just didn't have enough notice to put it together.

So I think we've done six of them.

So much fun.

And you guys spend the night out there?

No, I so I'm a little leery about being responsible for everybody on an overnight stay.

I mean, I know we're all adults, but I didn't want to add the cost of a hotel room, try to figure out who was going to be bunking with who, that kind of stuff.

So we just do it there and back situation, which isn't too bad because we are on a bus so you're not doing the actual driving.

So when we do have an afternoon game, usually there at 3:00 in the afternoon, we end up leaving here at about 8:30 or 9:00 in the morning and we get back around 11:30 or midnight.

It's a long day for sure, but it's a ton of fun.

Yeah, I love that kind of stuff by the way, too, like getting on a bus and you don't gotta worry about driving.

You know, well, the way the way Leela, who's the who's another manager here, the way we do it is you don't really have to bring anything on the bus.

We're going to get you some water and soft drinks.

We're going to get you some adult beverages.

Maybe I don't know if I'd love to say that, but we're definitely going to get you a lunch.

We do some stops, we get coffee, we do all that stuff.

We try to make it so that you're not out of pocket for anything.

That one ticket price that you pay can get you for the entire day.

But of course, when you're at the stadium, you're going to want to maybe buy some popcorn or hot dog or something there.

That's on, that's on you.

But that's what I like about it.

It can like that one price that we give you.

It covers your entire day.

So that's fun and to me, worth it.

So is that done for this year already or when does it happen?

Yeah.

So the home opener is back in March, So the next home opener is gonna be in March of 2026, and we'll do the same thing.

We always have 4848 seats open.

Last year we sold out in record time because of the repeat guests.

It was, it was crazy.

Yeah, that must be a bit of a scrum to get a ticket for that because there's a lot of appeal to that.

I think people like well.

For sure, for sure.

And I get a lot of people asking if maybe I would do it again.

The only, the only problem with doing it a second time, say mid season is ticket availability.

You're just you have to do it a little bit differently.

You can't go through the Labatt route to get those those tickets.

So I kind of shy away from it and I don't want to lose the appeal of of the home opener.

It has such a nice shine on it that I don't want to make it so that people are like, well, I'll just do it in in the middle of the year yet, you know, I, I want everybody to come to the opener.

It's so much fun.

It's electric.

And if you haven't been to Rogers Stadium, it's it's a blast.

Is that the old Skydome out there?

Yeah, it is the old Skydome and and fun fact, I'm just going to give you a little bit of history.

When I when I did try to stray away from the hospitality industry, I landed in the glass work and I worked for a company and I actually worked at Skydome when it was being built for almost 2 years.

I had started a glacier and metal mechanic apprenticeship and it turned out it wasn't for me.

It was really good money as you can imagine being in a trade like that, but it just that that it wasn't for me.

But I find it so, I find it so interesting that I spent two years of my life there, six days a week almost.

And then here I am, you know, 30 years after that.

Can't wait to get back to the building to watch a game.

What type of work was it you were doing?

I was doing it so glazing, it's it's glazing and metal mechanic is what it's called.

So you install windows, doors, air seal, that kind of stuff.

And I was working for a company out of Saint Catherine's who had the contract for the Skydome and they wanted to get some people in from Saint Catherine's into the Toronto union.

And I was living in Saint Catherine's and kind of heard about it and thought, yeah, you know what, I'll give that a shot.

The money was good.

I did that.

But like, that was tough work.

You know, like I said, there's, there's a lot of money to be made, but it just, it wasn't, it wasn't quite for me.

I, I did that for about two years and thought I'm, I'm never going to really follow through with this.

So yeah.

So I imagine you were living in Toronto at the time too.

Well, because the push was on, so to speak, for to, to get the Skydome open, they actually put us up in, in hotels so that we could work longer hours.

So I was living in a, in a hotel down on King Street 5 like five days a week and I would go home for, for two.

And then when the real push came on to get the Skydome opened, we were doing that for six days a week.

It was crazy.

It was crazy, but we got it open in time.

So you were born in North Bay, is that right?

I am originally, yeah, born and raised in North Bay, proud of it.

Left when I was about 21 to move to Saint Catherine's to explore some other options.

And here I am just down the road in Sudbury.

I really like, I really enjoyed living in Sudbury.

I know that there's a bit of a sometimes a small town rivalry right between the two of us, or somebody told us that.

Yeah, North Bay and.

Sudbury were kind of the Shelbyville and Springfield in the Simpson world, yeah.

The red against the blue.

Yeah, so I, I, but I mean, North Bay has so much to offer and, you know, I, I, I miss it.

The, the lakes, you know, being situated in between the two lakes and just, you know, for me, it's nostalgic for sure.

I was, like I said, born and raised there.

Had a lot of happy, happy years there.

Went to Whitfield.

I'm a Wildcat.

Well, you know, when I go to North Bay, I get a good vibe around the they got that like the boardwalk down by the water there.

Isn't it spectacular?

It is.

And somebody on this show was talking about about that not long ago.

I, I, I don't recall exactly who it was now, but they were saying that North Bay dumps a lot of money into that aspect of it because they want it to feel great when you go there.

You know, well, it's nice and, and you can, you can walk from one end of the city to the other pretty much along the, along the boardwalk and the waterfront, I guess we call it.

And there were when I was living there, there was a carousel and I think it might still be there.

And it's just a really nice scenic walk.

And it's usually packed in the evenings with all age groups just out for a stroll.

I think there's a bike path as well.

It's, it's just a, it's a people would drive to go for a walk there.

Well, let me ask you this question sooner than later then, because I I usually wait to around the 25 minute mark.

But since we're on the on the topic, what is one thing that you feel would make Sudbury greater?

Oh my goodness.

One thing that would make Sudbury greater.

One thing.

Yeah, it's hard to.

It's hard to.

You know, it is, I am not necessarily a huge downtown advocate, but I think I would be if if the environment was a little more aesthetically pleasing, if you could feel a little more safe going down there at any time of day.

I'm not normally a nervous Nelly type person when I go out on my own or by myself, but you see some things in downtown Sudbury and I wish we could get that cleaned up.

I know that's a whole other can of worms and would take lots of politics and lots of money to get it cleaned up.

But, and by cleaning up, I'm not even 100% sure what I mean by that.

I just, I know that every community deals with the opioid crisis and homelessness and I, I would just love to see downtown really thrive, not just, not just maybe on Thursdays and, and Fridays, but it, it would just, it'd be nice if it was a nice place to go when I was really young.

Again, it was in North Bay.

I don't know if Subway could do it, but we, we would block off Main Street from say June until September and you, you couldn't drive along Main Street and people had patios and you could walk down the middle of the street and there were flower boxes and stuff everywhere.

And I don't know if that's something that we could do here.

I think they do do that for a little bit.

But I, I would say I would like to see downtown be a little more welcoming.

Good answer.

And we need better signage.

As someone who's directionally challenged, when I first, I still use my GPS when I go downtown because I don't know which street is one way and I don't, not all the streets are labeled very well so that when you're approaching them, you can see which street you are on or you're approaching.

And I, I remember coming home one day and just being incensed that like, I kept on going around and around in circles and I, I couldn't figure out where I was.

And I just, I actually sent the city of Sudbury an e-mail.

I don't think they did anything with it, but I was like, be nice to know if I knew where I was going.

Yeah.

So let's get the downtown cleaned up a little bit.

You know what's funny about that?

That's how I feel when I drive in North Bay.

Like, what street?

What street is this?

Where am I going?

But I never lived there, right?

Never lived.

There well, you know that just so there's a lot to be said for that too, because as I mentioned before, I, I am not very good with directions.

So I do find there's there's two ways people can give directions.

They can give them like they've they've lived there all their lives and assume that you know what you're talking about or they give them knowing that this is how I would like to be told how to get there.

You need landmarks.

You need to know what you're going to approach before you get there and, and that kind of stuff.

So I probably would be in the same boat if I was giving somebody directions in my neighborhood because you're familiar with it, right.

So you don't know that you need to get into the left hand turn lane at the second set of lights, but yeah.

Well, good answer Bev, I appreciate that.

Hey, no problem.

So do you guys have live music there at the pub?

Finn Mccools.

We do live music, so we do live music on Thursdays and Fridays, we do Andy Lo on Thursday night.

So Andy Lo has been an integral part of the pub community.

He approached us a couple of years ago and just said hey, I do this thing in Killarney.

And then for the other months I I find myself looking for gigs or people are looking for me and here's what I'd like to do.

I like the pub atmosphere, so I'd like to play for just you guys and I'll do it every Thursday.

And I thought, hey, like, why not?

So it takes the pressure off me having to find musicians.

And we have created a really nice following here on Thursday nights.

We've got lots of regulars that make reservations every week and he has cultivated that and we have cultivated that together.

Yes, they're here to see Andy Lo, but you know, we're pouring the pints and we're getting the appetizers out and stuff like that.

So if you haven't been to a Thursday night at the pub, you're you're missing out.

Because he plays tons of traditional and he'll play some Irish and Scottish and English tunes and he does some great covers and even some even some campy covers of some pop tunes.

If you haven't heard him, do I think he'll do Britney Spears?

Hit me one, hit me baby one more time.

And when he pulls that one out, people just like they clap.

They love it.

So good show with Andy Lowe on Thursday nights and then we do

entertainment from 7:00 to 10:00 on Friday nights.

We like to go a little bit early because we just, we just find that the the age group that we seem to appeal to like to come out for an earlier evening and we switch those up every week.

We do have some regulars at that play at the pub maybe more often than others, but we're OK with that too, because we like to kind of cultivate that following as well.

So I usually book seasonally, right?

So I'll do it like for about four months at a time so that we can get a line up going.

So for instance, I'm booked until the new year already and we already know who's playing and, and we like it like that.

You're one of the guests.

We love having you out on the stage though, you groovy tunes.

Oh, thank you.

So Andy's his gig started in 2018.

Yeah, so he started well and then we had to give that up for COVID, right, for for a while.

So and we got back into it.

So he's been, he's been doing the Thursday nights with us for probably five years in total.

Takes the odd Thursday off every now and again when he wants to take some holidays.

I guess everybody's entitled to that.

But yeah, it's we.

We've had a great relationship with him for a good long time.

Well, he's my favorite local entertainer.

Yeah, I heard stories about, so I've been in Sudbury for for 15 years, maybe going on 16 years, and I heard stories about him having them lined up at a pub downtown around the corner and just packing them in Thursday, Fridays and Saturdays.

And then that might be an awesome feeling for a musician.

But yeah, so I'll, I'll take some of that for sure.

Nice.

Yeah.

So let's talk about food for a minute.

Sure, you have a fantastic burger.

When I go there I usually get the the the pub, the bacon cheeseburger.

The bacon cheeseburger.

It's so simple so.

Good.

It's it's the sauce.

Something about it.

It puts it for me in the top five of burgers that I've tried in Sudbury so well.

Yeah, that's good to hear.

I appreciate that.

It's one of my favourites as well, so when people come in and ask for a recommendation, that is one of my top three recommendations and I'm not.

I'm not just saying that because you brought it up, but the pubs Bacon cheeseburger, lettuce, tomato, pickle, onion, our burger sauce, fresh beef, fatty British bun please toasted.

It's delicious.

You're right, you can't go wrong.

What's what's one of your What's your best selling dish or one of them?

Our number one seller is fish and chips.

So either one piece fish and chips or two piece fish and chips, fish with coleslaw, fries.

We call it a Dunglo sauce when we make our own tartar sauce here in house.

And if you have a decent fish on your menu and you're bringing in the pre made tartar sauce, you're not doing yourself any favours in my opinion.

That's got to be our number one seller.

Our burger is probably that bacon cheeseburger is up there and our Guinness steak and mushroom pie that we make in house as well.

That's a.

That's probably number two or three for sure.

So all like all of the FINMA cool places, do they all have the same menu or is it sort of geographically?

We all have the same menu.

There may be some who do what we call local store marketing and they may have something a little bit different where they may do, they may do an appetizer night, but it's would be all be the same appetizers that we have.

So they may run some things specially there's pubs out east that may not run the same promotions that we do just for product availability reasons.

And likewise with some of the pubs out in Alberta, but in Ontario I you can go to the Brampton pub and get that pubs bacon cheeseburger and it should taste exactly the same.

Let's talk about the history of of the franchise for a minute.

Where, where, where did this start out?

This Finn Mccool's pub.

So Finn Mccool's was the brainchild.

Oh wait, it it is probably about 30 years old.

Back when we were associated with, it was called Prime Pubs actually.

And we were associated with Eastside, Mario's, Pat and Mario's, because Pat and Mario's, as most people know, used to be a franchise and Casey's.

And then they, so they, they always like to branch out and have like a higher end restaurant, which would have been Pat and Mario's, your, your comfort restaurant, which would have been Casey's.

And then they decided to do, then they had East side Marrow's.

That was fun for the whole family.

And then they decided to do a pub where, you know, they could focus more on the, the beverage side of the business.

It might have been a little bit ahead of its time because I think it was about 30 or 35 years ago.

And it, they just didn't fly in some of the communities.

And then they ended up shutting them down.

And then a few years later they brought them back and bettered them.

And, you know, up, it's up to the franchise to, to make them work.

I mean, you'll, you can get the, you can get the idea from, from head office, But I mean, you have to be able to make it flourish.

You have to be able to.

You know, cook the food and get the beverages and stuff like that.

So it just came out of what we thought was a need for a social atmosphere.

Not necessarily for the 19 year olds, but for the for the, you know, the 28 to like the 30 year old to the, to the 55 year old people coming out and having a beer after work.

Not necessarily looking for a happy hour, not necessarily looking for a place to go and just crush pints, if you know what I mean.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So this is a a Canadian franchise?

Yes, yes it is.

For sure.

There's there's a bunch in Ontario, there's one out out east and there's 2IN Manitoba and one in Winnipeg or pardon me, one in Alberta.

All right, there might be two in Alberta and one in in Manitoba, but yeah, it's definitely Canadian.

Beauty.

And I think it's been there since what, 2013 or 14 era?

This location, yeah, 20/20/12 I think.

Oh wow, is.

When is when they 20?

Yeah.

This used to be an old Blockbuster and this location used to be an old Blockbuster and they, they gutted it.

And so it's, it's considered a rebuild because the, just the four walls were here and then they they, you know, built it from the ground up.

And there's pieces of pieces directly from Ireland hubs that are in the, the pubs like the the Guinness Mirror behind our bar that was brought in from directly from Ireland.

Parts of the the booth area that's at the end of the bar.

It's called the snug.

They were brought in from Ireland just to, you know, make sure that we had some authenticity in and pretty cool.

Yeah, it sounds amazing.

Yeah.

So go on, sorry.

I was going to say, yeah, like if you're ever thinking about adding to the pub and you've got a group of four or six of you and you want to a little bit of privacy with every pub would have a snug.

And they call them the snugs because they used to hideaway women back there because women weren't supposed to be seen drinking back in the day like many, many, many years ago.

And sometimes they would put clergy in there as well because they weren't to be seen going over the top.

So every pub has a snug and it's usually not, not necessarily closed off with doors, but just a separate area in the back that's that's private.

And it's usually fun.

It's fun to sit in there because you're private, but you're open.

And you guys have one of these?

Yeah, we do.

It's at the end of the bar.

So when you come into the restaurant, it's directly to your right at the on the bar side at the end of the bar.

And it's a table for six and it's got a bench on one side and three chairs on another.

And it's got, you know, almost almost closed in.

It's got a walkway into it, just a just a table and and chairs.

But yeah, it's a great little spot for small little meeting if you're looking for some privacy or you you want to celebrate at the pub and be cash, but you want a little bit of yeah, yeah, a lot of people book it.

So how about the the patio there outside?

When does that close typically for the season?

So we usually shut that down Thanksgiving weekend and we know that sometimes we can have some awesome weather after October or the weekend, the Thanksgiving weekend, but we just, we just find it easier to just go ahead and make that our date.

It can be pretty volatile after that.

So like for example, we had some really nice weather, very, very windy yesterday.

But then at night time we had like 5 or 6 tables out there.

But as soon as the sun goes down, it gets pretty cold.

But generally speaking, we have a pretty successful patio season.

We have about 14 tables out there.

We could technically get more if we wanted to, but we don't like to jam them in.

That's just something we kind of stayed with after after COVID.

We just thought, you know, let's have some breathing room out here.

We don't need to pack everybody in the cattle.

So, yeah, you know what I mean?

And we we put the flowers out there.

And so when you're sitting down on our patio, you and and those flowers are at eye level, you can almost forget that you're sitting in a parking lot because we're aware that we're, you know, we're built out into a parking lot.

But it is pretty comfy.

Our flowers are stellar.

We get them from all this produce out in Buzzard Valley.

They do wonderful work, Little plug for them.

And I love our patio with all the umbrellas and yeah, it's pleasant.

We don't, we don't do a lot of music out there.

I know when Naked Soul comes to play, they absolutely love playing on our patio and they they jam, they bring in people, right?

So they're out there and it's packed.

So I see here on your Facebook that you also were a part of the Northern Her Northern Voice Festival this year.

Yeah.

So tell us about that.

Yeah, so Mark Manistow and the Sudbury Performance Group, men, they are just prolific and they do all kinds of things.

And it just from what I understand, it started as a very small kind of grassroots little thing.

And, and Mark and his team have just blown it right up.

And I'm, I'm, I'm pretty proud of the work that he's done, proud of him.

So he's done a couple of festivals.

So her Northern Voice, we've been a venue for for a few years and they feature female lead bands or solo artists that are female and just give them the opportunity to get up on a stage and show their show their stuff.

So we get, we participate on that in it like Tuesday through Sunday and on Saturdays and Sunday we have music playing all day acts.

So usually a couple of hours from 1 entertainer.

And it's a really nice opportunity for people who maybe wouldn't otherwise get up on stage or have those, I don't know, paid gigs, But it's, it's, it's a lot of fun And it's great to I've, I've, I've had, I've done some bookings from them and I really appreciate the work that cyber performance group does.

And they do another festival too.

And I think it's just the Northern Arts Festival.

And that one is just, well, I want to say anybody, but not, not strict, not just geared to, to women.

And I've had some bookings from them as well because it gives me an opportunity as someone who can potentially hire you to, to listen to you and hear you and, and say, you know what?

I think you're a great fit for the pub.

And I have done that from almost every festival we do.

I always seem to gravitate to a couple and just say, hey, let me get you on my roster.

Wow, one last question for you, Bev.

What does, what does Patty's Day look like at the Mccool's Pub?

Has, you know, that Irish feel to it?

So what?

What's going on there?

Well, Saint Patrick's Day, as you can imagine, there's our single busiest day of the year.

We are packed from 11:00 AM till

11:00 PM.

We do not take reservations on that day.

We just can simply not hold tables.

We go on a wait list.

This year we were on a wait list by about 11:35 AM where we just now we're taking phone numbers and we're calling you when the table's ready.

And if you're not able to get to us within about 10 minutes, we have to give that table away.

It's, it's bananas and it's all hands on deck.

I'm it, it's bananas.

My, my staff, my staff, the staff.

It's the only day of the year where we, we just work really long hours.

And we know that we're going to start at 11 and we're going to finish at 11.

So most of the people that are, that are working, are working a 12 or 13 hour day and they're all about it.

I mean, it's, it's a lot of fun.

We we make it fun for the staff, but it's crazy in here.

And I'll usually get the the usual suspects that I would would be Andy Lowe because he does a lot of that traditional music.

I love Duncan Cameron, he with all his instruments.

He plays a lot of traditional Celtic and Irish music.

And we finish the night out with Rodney Mayor and Beyond Ireland.

And if you haven't had a chance to see them, I mean, they are fun.

Rodney, I think it's Rodney, his brother and his cousin, Alex.

And oh, forgive me, I can't remember the other name.

He's going to be mad at me for not remembering.

It'll come to me.

But it's it's, it's a lot of fun in here.

It's hard.

And I'm just going to be straight up like, I'll, I'll let your audience know.

It's tough if you show up with a group of eight, because now we're trying to find two or three tables to get you at and it's so difficult.

If you just come in with Party 4, you're probably going to get SAT a little faster.

But yeah, it's, it's, it's crazy in here.

I don't know how else to tell you.

I can look at the clock and

it's, it's 12:15 in the afternoon and I can look at the clock again at six and then I'll look at the clock again.

It's 10:00 at night.

It's it's, it's crazy.

That's definitely the place to be on Patty's Day.

Oh for sure, for sure.

The Guinness is flowing.

We sell tons of Guinness that day, in particular lots of Jameson.

We feature some of our Irish menu items on that day.

It's just, it's a lot of fun to get your Irish on.

Most people come in wearing green.

We have giveaways, that kind of stuff too.

And it's just, it's fun.

I have people coming in like men coming in in kilts and women coming in with their face painted It It's, it's fun.

It's a It's a lot of fun.

Wow.

Yeah, I mean, you know, we base, we, we already start like, like we already, we're already looking forward to Saint Patrick's Day.

I've already put my order in for the, you know, the giveaways that I that, that we get.

We've already done that.

We're already, I'm already talking about, OK, who we're going to hire for bands who can work What it's it's yeah.

Nice.

Because March 17th is the same day every year, right?

So we've got to be prepared for it.

And we're, well, it's true, right?

We're, we're and people just thought, I don't think you're going to be that busy.

It's a Sunday.

I'm like, yeah, we're going to be busy.

So obviously busier, busier if it's a Friday or Saturday.

But if it's a Sunday, Monday or Tuesday, we are still jammed.

We are still jammed.

Nice Sudbury interviews everyone and Bev, thank you sincerely for coming on You're you're a smooth, a smooth talker and I love it.

I could listen to you all day, so.

Well, I've never been accused of being shy, that's for sure.

So Danny, I really appreciate the opportunity to come on here.

It's a great platform.

And thank, thank you so much.

Had fun.

No problem, talk to you soon.

Bye.

You bet.

Have a great day.