Huckleberry’s Café in Wetaskiwin has come up with a new way for customers to enjoy curbside pickup and company from the community.
Alberta restaurants are opening their dining rooms following AHS orders, including only serving at half capacity, following Alberta’s Phase One of re-openings. However, despite strict regulations in place, some Albertan’s are still weary of dining in while the pandemic is active.
Huckleberry’s customers came up with a solution to leave their houses to meet with friends and family to eat without using the restaurant’s dining room. At the time of the creation of the parking lot picnic, Phase One had not been initiated.
Tasha Chambers with Huckleberry’s Café says that the idea originated on Mother’s Day, when some mothers ordered curbside pick up from the restaurant and then proceeded to set up chairs in the parking lot to enjoy each other’s company while eating their meal.
After seeing a June 3 Facebook post from Huckleberry’s Café of some customers enjoying a parking lot picnic, Mayor Tyler Gandam got on board with the idea.
Chambers says, “Our customers are the ones who started it and Tyler ran with it.”
Gandam shared the pictures of the June 3 parking lot picnic to his Facebook page, posting, “A parking lot picnic?! What a great idea! Who wants to do lunch on Friday?”
At noon on Friday June 5, Gandam and his family as well as Wetaskiwin community members gathered in the Huckleberry’s parking lot to enjoy a social distanced picnic with their curbside orders from the Café.
“I thought it would be a fun idea,” Gandam says.
Community member Pattie Ganske says she came out to join the parking lot picnic to support the community. “Just seeing people we haven’t seen in a long time, seeing people we haven’t met yet,” Ganske says.
Huckleberry’s Café is hoping to make all Fridays parking lot picnic day. To order a meal for a parking lot picnic or home, you can call in or order online. Chambers also says that right now all online orders are 10 per cent off.
shaela.dansereau@pipestoneflyer.ca
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