“We’re passionate about making guests feel welcome through great experiences,” said Mike Lambert, owner of East Village Pub & Eatery. “We like to provide the inviting atmosphere of a pub, while having the best food and service. Our promise to our customers is to expect the best. We make our food in-house daily using high quality ingredients and lots of tender love and care.” Now in its 7th year, East Village Pub & Eatery has proven the potent staying power of putting good food and great service first. Accolades abound: recently awarded Best Burger in Town , the restaurant has won YMM Magazine’s Best Breakfast and Pub Food in 2019, was previously crowned the 2017 Business of the Year by the Chamber of Commerce, and Mike himself numbered among Fort McMurray’s Top 50 under 50 in 2018. Unlike every other owner we’ve so far featured in the series, Mike is a McMurray native. Born, raised, worked and graduated here, Mike left town long enough to attain a business degree at the Univ

Heather St. Croix and Chad White, owners of Dedicate Healthy Kitchen “I’m not sure I would have ever tried to start a restaurant anywhere else. But the sense of opportunity here was the biggest push for me to have the confidence to give it a shot,” Heather said, looking back on how her humble desire for easy, healthful eating has grown into a city-spanning sensation in six short years. Dedicate Healthy Kitchen, founded by Heather St. Croix and Chad White, debuted in downtown Fort McMurray, August 2015. The kitchen is built on the basis of providing patrons a wide range of hearty food to fuel their way to good health and happiness. “As kids, Chad and I lived about 45 minutes away from each other in small town Newfoundland,” Heather said. “Our schools would play basketball against each other. It was the only sport we had there, so we played basketball from grade 7 to graduation -- 5 or 6 days a week, with tournaments on the weekend.” After graduation the two had seemingly gone their sep

Karl Paetschke at The Fish Place, October 2020 “I did it, I made it, but I did it the hard way.” “Yes indeed, I’ve had lots of experience -- perhaps too much,” Karl Paetschke joked about a career stretching over 60 years. “I did it, I made it, but I did it the hard way.” Born in Germany, Karl got started in Berlin. Coming out of his apprenticeship, he landed his first job as a chef at 18 years old. “I’ve always been a chef, right from the beginning. Always running places from the kitchen.” At 23, Karl moved to Canada and found work in the kitchens of remote camps in British Columbia.   “That was time well spent,” he said. “It really let me see what appealed to the tastes of the ordinary working Canadian. I’m classically trained -- Italian, French, German -- but I don’t really do that kind of cooking now, and haven’t for a long time. Fine dining is out, it’s been out for a while. Most people aren’t interested in it, and it’s very costly.” Eventually, B.C. had itself proven too costly f

“I came up for the weekend and haven’t gone home yet.”      “I came up for the weekend and haven’t gone home yet,” Steve Niehaus said, reflecting on 22 years in Fort McMurray.  “I was working as a chef for a hotel group that owned the old Mackenzie Park Inn,” he said. Its restaurant was short-handed, so Steve came up to help. Staying on with the hotel, he built a wealth of experience running his own kitchen. In time, when the opportunity emerged, Steve invested himself in ownership of Mitchell’s Cafe -- which he went on to operate for 11 years alongside his wife, Cathy. After Mitchell’s, they moved on to the Legion kitchen, where they kept hard at work for their hungry patrons until the 2016 wildfire roared through the region. “We got through the fire situation, settled back in and just kept getting phone calls and demand for catering services.”   When space opened up at the Unifor building downtown, Steve and Cathy sprang on their latest vision for food service with Chef2you cater