The Farmhouse restaurant is set to reopen Thursday after an August fire forced the owners to close their doors.
An Aug. 23 blaze in the basement of the historic Bradford Street building led to the business being shuttered for almost three months. And while the fire didn't cause a lot of structural damage, there was some uncertainty about how it had affected the building's electrical systems.
“The heat damage to the electrical panel and some of the wires being burned is what really caused the closing,” owner Randy Feltis told BarrieToday. “All the wiring had to be redone and that's a big job.”
The fire came shortly after The Farmhouse and other Ontario establishments had already felt the strain of being shut down for COVID-19 restrictions since mid-March.
The province allowed many businesses, including The Farmhouse, to reopen on June 12 as part of a phased approach.
“We were doing great, really getting our numbers back to pre-COVID era, before the fire,” Feltis said. “Then the fire happened and we got sidetracked again.”
Feltis told BarrieToday back in August that his main concern was the possibility of losing many of the staff whom he liked and trusted. But anyone dining at The Farmhouse tomorrow will see familiar faces.
“We got almost the entire staff back. A lot of them were happy here and that was such a great thing for us," he said. "I was honest with them about how things looked and the time projections, and we’ll open Thursday with many of the same staff.”
Feltis says they hope to hit the ground running.
“We’re doing reservations online now and we’ve been getting a really good response," he said. "We’re just starting with the first floor Thursday, Friday and Saturday, because we’ve made a lot of changes to the menu. It's like opening a brand-new restaurant and you’ve got to get the cobwebs out first. Next weekend, we’ll open the upstairs.”
As COVID numbers in the province continue to rise almost every day, BarrieToday asked Feltis if he was concerned about another forced shutdown and how that would look for his restaurant.
“I actually think the numbers are fairly good in Simcoe County; I think it is going to be OK for us,” he said. “We have the space here to do social distancing, especially after redoing the tables and the floor designs. It's actually been a nice break, because it has been eight years of beating up this poor old building. So we’ve given it a little bit of a makeover and improved many areas.
“Are we nervous of anymore shutdowns? Sure, but we’re going to work as hard as we can as long as we can.”
