From dining room to serving window, Lazy Tulip finds its way

This is one little window you might not want to drive by.

When running a once-busy 40-seat eatery just didn’t seem to cut it anymore, Lazy Tulip Cafe owner Michelle Huggins decided on a different way to serve her customers: through an outdoor serving window.

Located behind the long-running Midway Diner on Bradford Street, she and her Lazy Tulip staff slide some amazing fare through the little window.

Think keto chicken salad, apple/pecan baked French toast and baked in-house cheddar spinach muffins along with cappuccino and latte.

The time to go smaller and more efficient had come, Huggins tells BarrieToday.

“We were on Maple Avenue with a 40-seat restaurant and rocking it up until COVID hit,” she says.

“Then for various reasons I decided I needed to take a step back from the restaurant industry as we’ve known it,” Huggins says, “and I set up this little take-out spot in the back of the Midway Diner, which my best friend Matthew Jones owns.”

Now what was once an unused part of the large diner building is a functioning business.

“I decided to cut my rent by one-fifth and do take-out only, take a step back and see where the industry goes,” Huggins says. “There was the open and closing and the constantly having to reinvent yourself. You’d be open and you’re all stocked up and then all of a sudden, 'Oh, we’re closing in two days and you’ve got all this inventory.'

“It was exhausting. I couldn’t deal with it anymore.”

The restaurateur says she loves the area of Barrie the shop is located, but also the arrangement with the Midway Diner, something we might see more of in the restaurant industry, she suggests. 

“In the winter, I’m expecting it to be slow, but in the summer, I’m actually the closest coffee shop to the beach,” Huggins says. “I’ve got all these condos here and obviously when it’s warmer I have all this foot traffic.

“I think sharing spaces is also the future. Rents are so expensive,” she adds. “Say you’re a dinner-only place. Why not share with a breakfast/lunch place? Something like that.

“We both do breakfast and lunch and we’re not even competing against each other. It’s really working out nicely. We support each other and help with each other’s costs.”

Uber and Skip the Dishes are also a big part of her deliveries and throughout the holiday season there will be additional catering opportunities.

Huggins will soon be getting ready for winter — by getting away from it.

“My staff have been with me for three-and-a-half years now, so they’ve already been through three winters without me,” she says with a laugh.

“We’re just going to really slim down operations,” Huggins says. “I’ve only got three staff now, because that’s all I need. I go away for the winter and I can leave my restaurant in their hands and I can trust they’re going to run it like they’re me.”

During these uncertain times of the pandemic, that kind of trust goes a long way.

“You’ve got to take care of your staff. You’ve got to pay them well,” she says. “You’ve got to be understanding of when they’re going through things — be it their mental health or whatever they’re going through — and you’ve got to be there for them.

“You support them and let them know they’ve got a job when they get through whatever they’re going through.”

Lazy Tulip Cafe is located at 151 Bradford St., on the John Street side.