Pictured above: The Wee Grill’s Crystal Noble hands a game snack to a customer during a recent Thunder Cats game at John Bucyk Arena. Lorne Eckersley photo
By Lorne Eckersley
Crystal Noble’s evolution from being a server at Jimmy’s Pub and Grill to running her own food businesses took place so gradually that she hardly even noticed it happening.
“I always got along really well with Demetre Karountzos when he was cooking at Jimmy’s,” Noble said on Sunday. “We worked for about 15 years together—we really meshed.”
When Karountzos started a catering business while still working at Jimmy’s, he occasionally asked Noble for her help.
“Once in a while I would put together bids for catering jobs,” she recalled. “Then one night he was catering a really important dinner for the Masonic Lodge and he asked me if I could work for him on that night. The day after, he said, ‘You are really good at looking after the details and you seem to like it.’”
She began to work for him more and more and the catering business grew to the point where they couldn’t stay on at the pub.
And Noble was busy with the rest of her life, too. She and her husband Alan were raising two school-age children, and Crystal was involved with Adam Robertson Elementary School’s Parent Advisory Council, was a Lion’s Club member and was involved with the Creston Valley Community Housing Society.
“My kids were at the age where I wanted to be home more in the evenings and I could do lots of the catering organization work from home,” she said. “It was an ideal situation for me.”
Then, in November of 2017, the contract came up for the operation of the Community Complex food concession and she put in a last minute proposal.
“It was hand-written,” she laughed. “My computer had crashed and I couldn’t print out anything!”
They were selected for the contract and The Wee Greek was born. Traditional Greek food like souvlaki went on the menu, the East Coast Donair was added along with salads, and a decidedly unusual recreation centre eatery emerged.
Karountzos and Noble were kept busy, but still managed to add a contract to manage the Mallory Restaurant in the Creston Golf Club in 2019. The partnership with Karountzos began to wind down when Karountzos found the catering was plenty for him to handle. He stepped away from the The Wee Greek (now called The Wee Grill) and then last summer turned the golf club contract over to Noble as well.
“There were rumours that we had had a fight, because this is a small town, right?” She laughed, adding, “It was a very amicable change in the way we do things, and I hope people understand that. I learned a lot from Demetre and we are still friends.”
As she begins to amp up for the Mallory Restaurant reopening next month, Noble is also excited at some recent changes at the Community Complex. She has acquired a mini donut machine and the early test runs have been a great success.
And, as she looks out of the concourse windows and up to the hillside where skateboarders swarm around the new skatepark, she says she has already seen carloads of young travellers from around the Kootenays empty out onto the new facility, and is confident that the Community Complex will be busier than ever this summer. With plans to have the donut machine mounted on a mobile cart, she will be able to set it up outside and let the delicious aromas advertise her product to park users.
If there is anything she has learned in the food business it is that nothing ever stays the same. Taste trends come and go, customers change, and Noble feels quite comfortable at adapting.
“We have had to learn over the years to accommodate gluten-free, dairy-free and vegan diets, and now keto has become a big thing,” she said. “We need to satisfy many different expectations.”
The location in the Community Complex pretty much guarantees there will be different demands at different times. People coming out of fitness classes and activities have entirely different wants than hockey fans who enjoy a hot dog and fries or popcorn while watching a game.
Continued from A2
“We have quite a different menu on weekends than we do during the week,” she laughed. Perhaps it’s the four years she spent doing standup comedy in Edmonton before she was married, but Noble seems to take everything in stride, and finds humor in everything she does.
“I’m a people person when I am out in the public, but at home I like the quiet and time to recharge,” she said. “I need to be busy—it’s what helps me get up in the morning.”
Asked to name a highlight in her business career she was quick to respond.
“Demetre and I catered a 200-person wedding that took place at a youth camp north of Riondel,” she said. “We were asked to provide a five-course meal and we took days just to transport all the food and equipment up to this fairly remote spot. It turned out perfectly and everyone was thrilled. It was really stressful and a ton of work, but it felt great when we were packing up to come back home!”
In the 18 years since Crystal and Alan arrived in Creston (her grandparents used to have an acreage near Salmo, so she was familiar with the Kootenays), she has worked in the food business the entire time. And yes, it has been much different than being a standup comic.
“I can still clearly remember the first time I went up on the stage,” she smiled. “I started my routine. The laughter started near the stage and it just rolled to the back of the room, and then it came right back through the audience to the front again. ‘Rolling laughter’, I call it. But nothing about that career was better than that first night.
“Now I have great days and great nights all the time. I wouldn’t trade this life for anything.”