Charly Harwood has been a mechanic, truck driver, building contractor, cook and real estate salesman, and now she is a pub/restaurant owner, sole proprietor of Sirdar Station Pub.
“I’m starting to sound like 100-year-old women,” she laughed during a visit on Friday. “But all these experiences are helpful in a business like this.”
Harwood was living near Oliver in June 2016 when she took a motorcycle ride through the Kootenays to visit her dad in Cranbrook. Naturally, she took the Highway 3A route and noticed the For Sale sign on the historic Sirdar Pub. She completed the purchase before the end of the year, then moved in and got to work on the property which had sat empty for five years.
“I had been working as a realtor, and buying and renovating properties for years, so I was comfortable in making the investment,” she said.
With her own building experience, she took on extensive renovations.
“There was literally no insulation in the walls, so I stripped the interior bare and used spray-on insulation,” she said. “I know there is a high burnout rate in this industry, so I wanted to make an investment in the building and property, not just the business. If the business wears me down I want it to be sellable. These little old pubs are a dying breed, and I have a passion for fixing things up.”
Charly—officially she is Jennifer Lynn, “but my mom and dad were calling me Charly before I was born”—lives on the property, and has recruited an aunt to help as a server. A cousin is hosting regular Sunday “music and appy” afternoons.
She had no particular theme in mind when she started in on the renos, but eventually a train theme became a no-brainer, she said.
“Sirdar Pub would not have been here without the train station in its earlier days.”
Inside the still rustic-looking pub, hang historic photos. A startlingly larger 3-D steam engine appears to be bursting from the wall behind the bar, and a smaller version of a steam engine’s front sits on the bar itself. Both were made locally by Across the Board Creations, which makes magic with computers and 3-D printers.
New stonework, using hand-selected river rock from the Slocan Valley, fronts the bar and creates other features, including a large fireplace on the north wall.
“I wanted a rustic look without having the interior look all shiny and new,” she said.
Her planned soft opening a couple of weeks ago has turned out to be anything but soft. Pent-up demand from local residents and the usual summer traffic of visitors along Kootenay Lake’s East Shore have led to some extremely busy evenings.
“I want to apologize to customers who haven’t been able to get in, or who have experienced slow service,” she said.
The original menu plan has been pared down to a more basic pub food menu for the summer, and more dinner entrees and other items will be added in the fall.
“Brad (Red Seal Chef Brad Sutherland) has been great, but he’s been working 12-hour days, and that can’t go on forever,” Harwood said, adding that Sutherland’s reputation as a cook has been an attraction for customers.
“When I first started planning the business, I thought food would play a large part. I wanted to use good, fresh, local wherever possible products, with nothing being delivered frozen or pre-made,” she said. “But it is already looking like this might be more of a restaurant first and pub second.” To that end, she will be making a request to the BCLCB to amend her pub licence to allow children into Sirdar Station Pub during specified hours.