Robin McMillan and Branch Freedman say their first four weeks of business as restaurant owners was not too hectic. The couple, who have expanded their business (Branch 01 gift shop) at Bowen Island’s pier to include the new restaurant Branch & Butter say that this weekend, with the sudden heat and a holiday Monday, brought a serious change of pace.
“It was bananas,” says McMillan. “It was a lot of fun, and getting all that good energy from the tourists is part of why we opened, but I’ve never seen the pier like that. On Saturday we sold out by 4pm. Our baker in Gastown brought us a new shipment of bread Sunday morning, and that day we sold out by 2pm but scooped ice cream until 8pm, and Monday we sold out again. At one point we thought we had too much food, but ingredient by ingredient, everything just kept disappearing.”
Up at the four corners, Zoom Zoom Bowen had scooters booked back to back throughout the weekend.
“Every single rental was pre-booked online,” says business owner Jamie Woodall. “I don’t want the business to get too big, but I am considering adding two more scooters to our fleet just because I had to turn so many people away.”
She adds that business is definitely weather dependent, and her theory is, “people are just chomping at the bit to get outside.”
The rush of business did not stop in the lower Cove. Julie Cree, manager and co-owner of Artisan Eats says the restaurant had the busiest day in its existence on Sunday.
“We managed to stay open for our regular hours,” she says. “But we ran out of absolutely everything in our cooler. It was an epic weekend.”
Last week was the first week of the season that the Visitor Information Centre took statistics. Bowen Tourism Chair Murray Atherton says that numbers are definitely up.
“Last week we had roughly 15% more tourists than the same time last year,” says Atherton. “Every business person I ran into this week was smiling, last weekend was great for the local economy.”
