Nathan Detroit’s Sandwich Pad
When you and your sister run a restaurant together, family is baked into the business plan. That idea extends to patrons too.
Winnipeg Free Press 2018
“We have lots of good stories about how this restaurant has been part of people’s lives,” said Brenlea Yamron who own and runs, with her sister, Karen Yamron- Shpeller, the downtown restaurant their father bought nearly 40 years ago.
“We had an NHL hockey player who came in a year ago and told us he signed his first NHL contract in our restaurant. We didn’t even know that.”
Brenlea and Karen took over the Lombard Place Concourse restaurant, named for a character in Guys and Dolls, from their father. He bought it in 1981.
“He was 40 years old at the time and decided he wanted to work for himself. He took a week’s holiday and sat outside the restaurant and watched the crowds and knew it was for him,” said Brenlea.
“He was all about people,” Brenlea said, something he passed on to his daughters, proof of which shows up in surprising places. “We’ve had- everything from being on a beach in Mexico to being on a subway in Australia and having someone see us and shout out ‘I’ll have a corned beef on rye!’” she says.
The restaurant looks like a classic old-school deli you might find in New York or Montreal. It’s nothing fancy and diners share common tables. Photos of New York by local photographer Keith Levit adorn the walls.
“My sister started her career filling drink coolers in junior high,” Brenlea says. “Myself, summers and through high school I worked here. I came for a year after high school and found myself here full time, and never left.”
“It’s all about the relationships and that’s been our success,” she continues. “There’s a gentleman who comes in every day for breakfast and someone yells out ‘John’s here’ and his breakfast is made in front of him. That’s the kind of place it is.”
Their mother Fraydel still comes in two or three days a week and works the front of the restaurant greeting guests. “Someone from my family is here all the time. You’ll very often see one of us to get in and roll up our sleeves,” Brenlea says.
The restaurant has doubled in size since it’s beginning. Other things have changed as well.
“When we started there were just a handful of restaurants around us. Now we have a Starbucks on one side of us, and a Tim Horton’s on the other.”
Even food choices have changed. “There’s a much larger menu then when we started. People are looking for healthier eating. We are trying to be more to everyone.”
Homemade soups are hugely popular. “We don’t own a microwave. That’s our biggest boast. I don’t know of another 150-seat restaurant in Winnipeg that can say that.”
Of course, the deli and diner classics that made the restaurant famous are still on the menu, including the restaurant’s best selling sandwich. “We use the same supplier that we used 40 years ago for our corned beef and our rye bread,” she says of their iconic menu item.
The secret to success is a great balancing act of changing with the times and keeping what’s good about a classic restaurant.
“There’s a lot of my dad in it all. He would sit down at the table and chat with everyone. He was a real patriarch. And that carries us a long way. We have an amazing group of people we’ve been able to keep for a very long time. We have a lady who’s been with us for 33 years. And someone who’s been making sandwiches for 15 years.”
And they continue to share the good stories. Some with very happy endings.
“During the lunch rush, when someone is dining alone we ask ’Is anybody joining you?’ If not we say ‘Can we seat someone next to you?’ And we have a happily married couple because of that.”
