We love going out for dinner and supporting small, locally owned restaurants. But let’s be honest, dining out is becoming more and more expensive. Recently we found ourselves dining in a Chain Restaurant. We ordered 2 main entrées and 2 deserts and shared a bottle of wine. There were no local or organic ingredients on the menu. The meal came to $201.00 including tax and tip.
If you are a regular Red Apron client you know that you can enjoy a Thursday Fresh meal dinner, picked up in store or delivered to your home. These meals are generous and always include multiple components, feature local and organic ingredients, include a delicious dessert and require less than 30 minutes to re-heat. You probably have leftovers for the next day, and if you choose a bottle of wine from our beautiful selection of Ontario small batch/small vineyard wines, the total will come to $81.00 all in!
This difference of over $120 can go a long way to stretching your food budget!
Every couple of weeks my family orders burgers from our favourite Canadian Chain burger joint. Typically our order includes 4 cheeseburgers, two fries, no drinks or sides. The total, including tax and tip is $57.00
We are all concerned about rising costs and food is a big one. We have seen the impact of increased costs on everything from lettuce to flour and we work hard to keep our prices as low as we can.
By comparison, if you come into our store and purchase a 9.5″ Savoury Meat Pie, loaded with Ontario beef & pork which we source directly from the farmers, and add a large Roots & Shoots organic kale salad, you can feed 4 – 6 people a healthy, nutritious dinner that contains local and organic ingredients for $55.00.
You may have noticed some of your meals are packaged in this distinctive blue container. It’s part of an important testing phase and we are looking for your help in making a really exciting decision.
As you know, the Red Apron is committed to sustainable solutions and if this re-useable packaging works for our clients and us, it would represent a giant leap forward for our business and our planet.
Our partner in this effort is
A Friendlier Company, located in Guelph. Not only is this company woman owned, and Canadian based, but the packaging materials are made in Canada.
Thank you and we appreciate your continued support of our business.
The Red Apron
August 2021
It’s that time of year, where we try to squeeze the last drops out of summer vacation while anxiously preparing to head back to school and work. We all know that this will look a little different this year, but given the events of the last 18 months, it’s exciting to return to something resembling normal.
Check out our recent video below featuring some ideas for getting you back into the swing of things!
Red Apron Back to School Ideas
We have stocked our retail store with items that we believe will help you make this transition easier. Starting with the most important meal of the day, we have some tips and suggestions for you.
- Red Apron leftovers from the night before always taste delicious with a poached or fried egg on top! Think rice-vegetable-egg, or potato-meat-egg, trust me it’s a winner every time!
- Against the Grain farm supplies us with pancake mix and muffin mix that is made from a blend of highly nutritious, heritage grains like barley flour & corn flour.
- Sheldon Creek Dairy produces delicious, gently flavoured and sweetened milks in seasonal varieties. Currently we are carrying the Strawberry Milk and S’mores Milk in addition to the A2, Whole Milk and Cream! Delicious on berries, or breakfast cereal. Their yogurt is rich and nutritions and perfect for making smoothies, or to serve with fruit and Red Apron’s house made Granola in two flavours.
- Beking’s Eggs, Creel & Gambrel Bacon, and Around the Block Sausages round out our traditional breakfast offerings.
Lunches can be a real challenge for busy parents rushing out the door in the mornings. We have expanded our retail offerings to include Mepal storage containers in a variety of sizes. They go from fridge to freezer, to microwave to lunch bag and are leak proof and beautiful. Our Danica Tiffin containers, and Small Hinza Bags are a stylish way to transport your lunch to and from school or work.
Fill your lunch bag with a variety of nutritions options including:
- A selection from daily lunch offerings including sandwiches, noodle bowls, and side salads. The generous size of these offerings would make them an ideal option to share.
- Scout Canning’s tinned salmon & tuna are obvious choices for lunch sandwiches and salads.
- Against the Grain Corn chips paired with our house made dips is a delicious and nutritious option for lunch, accompanied by some fresh cut vegetables.
- Fill your snack cravings with Covered Bridge Potato chips or Lesser Evil’s popcorn.
- If you have access to a microwave at school or work, our single serving meals make the perfect lunch offering. Many of our Law Firm and Accounting Firm clients order them by the dozens during crunch times for their employees who are working long hours.
Look for our ‘Back to School’ themed dinner on Wednesday September 7th – Spaghetti and Meatballs!
We want to thank everyone for your support during our first month in our new location. It’s been going really well, and we are settling in nicely. Our spacious patio and huge parking lot have been real hits with our customer base. Wishing everyone a safe and happy return to school!
Every week this summer we have customers rolling into the Red Apron on a Wednesday, Thursday or Friday and loading up the cooler for the camp-site or cottage. Well this weekend I got invited to a cottage and decided to do the same so Amanda, Julie and I (Jennifer) put together a little video to show you how we can help you make your weekend adventures fun and delicious!
Watch me load my cooler for my weekend at the cottage!
Here is a short list of some of the items you can find in our store to make feeding a crowd on a weekend easy:
- grill ready items like Enright Beef Burgers and Hot Dogs, Around the Block Sausages, Ontario Rib and Flank steak, Atlantic Salmon, seasoned 1/2 Chickens, already cooked Pork Ribs, and more
- side salads and dishes to complement your grill items like summer risotto, potato salad, local kale slaw, beet salad, macaroni & cheese, organic quinoa dishes and so much more.
- dips, spreads, condiments, jams, jellies, mustards and so much more from producers like Mrs. McGarrigles, the Ketchup Project, Mom’s Salsa, and more
- Sourdough breads, demi baguettes, burger and hot dog buns from Nat’s Bread Company
- a fantastic selection of Ontario Wines, Beer Blends and Ciders
- baked goods, fruit pies, cakes, prepared meals, dips, spreads, cheeses, charcuterie and so much more.
Our team of knowledgeable, passionate and enthusiastic foodies will be on hand to help you plan your weekend meals.
As we approach the finish line and can see the light appearing at the end of the tunnel, we enter an even busier phase of our move to the new location at 410 Gladstone. If you have driven by, you will notice that work on the exterior has started. We have painted the outside a beautiful green, and we are starting to build a beautiful fence that will contain our parking area, and working to lay down the ground cover.
In typical Red Apron fashion, we have a very ‘earth friendly’ solution planned four our exterior space and look forward to sharing details with you on that ‘first in Ottawa’ solution!
On the inside, we have been painting walls, finishing plumbing and electrical, and receiving new furniture and equipment. It’s not just a new space we are getting, we launched a new website last week, we are receiving a new point of sale system this week, and there is a number of new, exciting and expensive pieces of equipment that are being installed and tested this coming week.
Finishing touches are being installed which include decorative light fixtures, hand railings, and counters for the cash and bakery area, and tile in the customer bathrooms.
We are so thrilled with the colours and finishes and are extremely grateful to our designer Shannan Callaghan at Design Wise in Ottawa, a boutique design team that specializes in Kitchens and Bathrooms, but agreed to work with us on this project. With an extremely limited budget Shannon managed to make our space beauty through the careful use of colour and small accents like tile.
As we approach the end of March and get a glimpse of spring weather, we are making great progress in our new location. This last week we have been framing up walls, applying drywall, finishing up the rough in of plumbing, electrical and HVAC, and planning the exterior.
Avery has put together a video that will help you locate the new location in the context of the neighbourhood, as well as highlight the beautiful windows that will be providing tonnes of daylight to brighten the interior of our retail space and production kitchen. Production kitchens are often windowless spaces tucked into the back of building with little access to daylight. Our team will be working in a bright airy space with high ceilings and beautiful windows letting southern light flood the space.
One of the biggest questions we have been getting from our customers is ‘will there be parking?’. Well the answer is yes….loads of parking for customers. We are fortunate to be able to offer metered street parking, and 10 customer parking spots on site.
We have not finalized an official Move Date yet, but it will be in June.
It’s been a busy few weeks at the Construction Site of the New Red Apron and things are moving along nicely. The most exciting part of the progress has been the addition of new windows and doors, which are transforming the look of the space and showing us how bright and full of natural light our new workplace will be!
The plumbing and electrical services have already been roughed in and this week the Construction Team at from Tikkun Construction will be starting to close in the walls and drop in the ceilings. By the middle of next week it will start to look like a finished space.
On the design side, we are turning our attention to the exterior of the space for choosing colours, signage, fencing, landscaping and parking materials. We have some exciting and beautiful things planned, and here’s a taste of what the new Red Apron might look like!
Read about the beginnings of the Red Apron and our own Jennifer Heagle.
Welcome to the New Red Apron! We are excited to share with you our journey from 564 Gladstone to 410 Gladstone. We secured a lease on this space over a year ago and we chose it for a number of reasons. First, we wanted to stay as close to our current location as possible. Second, we wanted more parking for our customers. Mostly, we needed more space, and 410 Gladstone is double the amount of space we currently occupy.
We knew this would be a long journey but we certainly were not factoring in a worldwide Pandemic when we started. To say it’s added layers of complexity, cost and delay, would be putting it lightly.
We took possession of the space in January and started the demolition and reconstruction process. The photo below shows you how bright and airy the new Cafe space will be, with windows facing right onto Gladstone, you will be able to sip coffee and enjoy a baked treat while watching the neighbourhood go by.
From our mezzanine office above, we will be able to look down into the Retail Cafe and Gourmet Shop while we answer the phones and enter orders. Our tiny little 8 x 10 office will be replaced by this spacious 600 square foot office and meeting room.
Throughout the process of design and construction we are looking to recycle and implement greener solutions. The Construction Team has been repurposing 2×4 lumber, which has more than doubled in price since the start of the Pandemic.
As we move through the weeks we will continue to provide you with updates. Thank you for your interest, support, well wishes and good vibes you have been sending our way!
Jennifer & the Red Apron Team!