The asking price for a family -run hotel is $ 12 million. The marshmallow reminders are priceless
In the early days of the Erie Beach Hotel, an iconic hotel and eating place in the small town of Port Dover, Ont., The Schneider family served more caught pickerel to their guests, in addition to their characteristic celery bread, reclaimed pumpkin and marshmallows salads.
“When Blue Pickerel became tight,” the third generation owner, Andrew Schneider, “and they catch all these unknown, unusable fish called Lake Erie Yellow Perch, my grandfather went to the pier and came back with a bucket of this stuff and said to my grandmother,” what can we do with this? ” Nobody wanted it then.
Nowadays, dinners in the Cove Room, Terrace Room and Perch -Patio – are all part of the many extensive restaurants of the Erie Beach Hotel, with capacity for 850 – enjoying the celery bread, pickled pumpkin and marshmallow salads, reports. But usually they come for the Lake Erie Perch.
Tastes evolve and times change. This spring, Andrew and his wife Pam, owners of the Erie Beach Hotel Enterprise and partial owners, with Andrew’s brother, of the Arbor, an informal dining area famous for his trademark Golden Glow Drink and foot-long hott dogs, plus a mini golf course, both in the neighborhood. The family businesses in Port Dover are for sale, for an all-in asking price of just under $ 12 million.
Like many old customers, I am saddened by the news. The Cove Room is where my grandparents and parents gathered to celebrate milestone anniversary and birthdays, graduates and engagement. Normally I come back from Marshmallow in Salades; But there, I participate, because the memories are sweet.
The Schneider Patriarch and Matriarch, Harold and Marjorie, bought an “beaten up” Erie Beach Hotel in 1946, as Andrew tells their story. Before his grandfather went to the war, to serve the navy, Andrew explains: “He and Grandma and he ran a hotel in Kitchener.” His grandmother managed the hotel for the two or three years while his grandfather was at war, but the hotel owners only compensated her as a housekeeper. That injustice resulted in the move of the couple to Dover.
And now, after four generations of Schneiders – possessing, operating and continuous improvement of the ownership of Erie Beach – I am curious how Andrew and Pam came to sell a company that has become such a large part of the identity of their family and Port Dover.
“How will people react if these old assets are brought down to make way for Lakeshore Condominiums?” I ask the couple in our virtual conversation.
“There is enough space available in Port Dover to build apartments,” Andrew me, with a smile, assures, “you don’t have to hit this.” He hopes that the people who buy the place: “Make this 10 times more successful than we; we want this to succeed and the city to succeed.”
The company has around 100 people, he explains, and “the payroll between here and the arbor, the tips, the things we buy locally, everything that influences the local economy in a huge way.”
Their oldest daughter manages the terrace room, adds Pam, and there was a lot of pressure on her: “I remember that she said to me …” I don’t want to be the one selling it … The whole city will look at me and I will be the one who sells it one day. ”
Andrew and Pam know that the decision to sell does not only influence the owners; Many of their current employees have been working in the Erie Beach Hotel for more than 20 years, Andrew reports. “We had a bartender who was 40 years old here, our chef was 40 years old here,” he says. “Rose, who is still working upstairs, has been with us for more than 40 years.”
The hospitality company is demanding, Pam explains; The only day of the year that the restaurants close is Christmas Day. “And there was a time,” Andrew adds, “when we never closed.”
“We are sold out every Christmas,” he reminds memories, “and when Dad left it to the staff to decide;” Do you want to continue to do Christmas or do you want to cut this off? ” And they said, “Let’s cut it off.” It took three years, “laughs Andrew. Cut it from three seats to two, to one, and then none, and that was a bit of how Christmas ended here. ”
Andrew and his brother Tony lived as young children in the Erie Beach Hotel, he remembers: “Bussing tables for breakfast when we were nine or 10; for that we wiped sidewalks and crushed the ice with a large old machine with a handle on the side.”
A century ago, starting in the 1920s, people made the trip to Port Dover to dance on Big Band Music in the ballroom of the Zomertuin. In the 1940s, Bands were Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong and Gene Krupa. In the 1950s, Ronnie Hawkins & The Hawks, and then the gamble who and lighthouse played the location.
The nearby city of Jarvis was also the home of a British Commonwealth Air Force Base, “So a lot of training was going on,” says Andrew, “and the boys who blow away steam here in the city.” In the rough and tumbling of the hotel bar, as soon as someone was cut off, you were cut off for life, Pam laughs. “People learned to behave,” she says, “or you never returned.”
In 2000 Andrew and Pam bought the family business from his parents.
“Baars was tight again, the prizes went up, the win fell,” Andrew remembers, and his mother had “all ended up …” What do we do if there is no more Baars in Lake Erie? “”
Andrew said to his mother: “I will set up a board for sale, or I will find a way to sell steak, or something, but I am not bound here.”
Andrew and Pam don’t leave Dover quickly. Lake Erie is well filled with Baars. But the couple has decided that their children can also choose their own path.
He and Pam are attached to the place, Andrew says: “But we should not dictate our children what they want to do with their own lives.”
Our website is the place for the latest break news, exclusive creations, longreads and provocative comments. Book Nationalpost.com Bookmark Nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, posted here.
