The building the Bread Bowl calls home at 591 Berford Street in Wiarton has quite the interesting history to it.

Prior to us taking over the space, it was formerly known to locals and tourists alike as J’s Breakfast Restaurant. It’s really quite surprising, actually, how many tourists come in asking us about when the change occurred.

Then you have the Irish Cottage Kitchen and Alehouse, which occupied this space before J’s Restaurant took over.

After signing the lease, for the space, we set about redesigning the layout with the intent of opening up more space for diners, while operating with less overall floor space that the previous two restaurants did.

We had to come up with a couple of different iterations until we got it right.

First thing we needed to address was the washroom situation.

Both the men’s and ladies’ washrooms were way too big for a space this size.

On top of that, the washrooms were situated right next to the entrance of the space, which really isn’t appealing when you’re having people come in for food.

So we opted to ditch the men’s washroom altogether in favour of turning that space into the dining nook our customers adore.

Then it was the kitchen’s turn for an overhaul.

Our model is very simple and doesn’t require any of the heavy-duty equipment most restaurants rely upon, so stripping out the kitchen both previous restaurants operated with and using only the prep kitchen in the back was no problem for us.

A New Wiarton Restaurant Is Born

We’ve made a point of keeping the video as short and sweet as possible, but you’ll see how much effort went into shrinking a space – it was almost as much work as expanding a space.

If you love the video, don’t hesitate to mention it the next time you happen to stop in.

A whole lot of blood, sweat and tears went into transforming this historic space.
(let’s just say the ‘blood’ part isn’t just a mere expression in this case).

The most exciting part of this ride is that we’re still not done with the changes and we’re constantly looking for new and better ways to serve you, which means we’re also always open to suggestions and critiques.

Thank you for all the support up to this point – it really goes without saying that none of this would be possible without you.