If you were listening to CBC Radio One (91.3 FM) yesterday – Information Morning Saint John – you might have caught Liz, owner of the Urban Deli. She was in to talk about the Uptown, restaurants and what the future might hold. The CBC site puts it this way: “Owner and operator of the Urban Deli, Elizabeth Rowe, tells us about the development opportunites in the uptown.”
If you missed it, you catch the podcast here: The Future Of Development In Uptown Saint John.
Through customer and staff support, the Urban Deli donated all the sales for our $2 and $3 Frites from three Saturdays in January (16th, 23rd, and 30th). We also had a donation jar on our counter so if anyone chose to do so, they could contribute as well.
We’ve managed to raise a little over $400 and are planning to get it over to the Canadian Red Cross today. We’re also going to see if there is a way to get the federal government to match it (which would make it an over $800 contribution). If what we understand is correct, the “matching dollars” program ends tomorrow. Our fingers are crossed that we’ll be able to get it matched by Ottawa.
The picture below is of two of our staff, Lianne and Ashely. Lianne is holding the fish bowl that was on the front counter where customers could donate and Ashley is holding some of our fries!
We’ve been very quiet recently on the site and elsewhere (like Twitter). We’re hoping to change this very soon! One of the reasons for being less than active online is that we’re exploring a few changes. Basically, we’d like to put things up that aren’t necessarily Urban Deli related but related to food generally, Saint John and especially the Uptown.
We think if all we talk about is the Deli we would get very tiresome very soon — kind of like the guy at the party who only talks about himself. Of course, we still want to talk about the Deli, just not exclusively.
In the meantime, thank you to everyone for the donations to our Haiti relief effort and please keep in mind the country’s problems aren’t going away anytime soon. You can donate anytime through organizations like Red Cross, World Vision and many others.
In case you aren’t already aware of this …
“The Saint John Board of Trade has dedicated a page on its website to help members raise awareness of what their businesses are doing to raise funds for aid relief in Haiti. Activities being undertaken by members of all sizes from small businesses to large companies are listed on this webpage.”
There is a lot of good information to be found there, including a Government of Canada link for businesses wanting to help in the relief efforts. You’ll also find a list of some of the Saint John businesses, large and small, who are already involved in some way. If you’re business is engaging in activities to help raise funds for Haiti relief, you can be added to the list.
Just pay a visit to the Members Helping Haiti page on the Saint John Board of Trade site. (You can also follow the SJ Board of Trade on Twitter: @i_gilman)
Yes, we’ve been a little slow out of the gate as far as the new year and our online activity goes but we haven’t been slow as far as the actual Urban Deli goes. We’ve been active!
One thing we wanted to make you aware of, if you aren’t already, is what is going on January 13th (next Wednesday). FUSION Saint John will be presenting a townhall as, “Leader of the Official Opposition David Alward talks to FUSION Saint John.” It’s an informational meeting running from 6:00pm to 7:30pm.
For more information or to RSVP, visit FUSION on their Facebook page.
We imagine it will be an interesting evening and we’re thrilled FUSION chose the Urban Deli to put this on. By the way, to keep up on all their upcoming events, you’ll find it all here on the FUSION Saint John site.
We thought we should let you in on what will be happening at the Urban Deli over the holiday period, so …
This week, we will be closing Thursday at 2:00pm, just after lunch service, and we will be closed until Monday (Dec. 28) when we reopen for our regular hours at 11:30am.
As for New Year’s week, we are also closing at 2pm on Thursday, (Dec 31). We will then reopen the same evening, New Year’s Eve, at 6:30 pm for our reserved seating New Year’s Eve dinner.
We’ll be serving a five course Italian Dinner on New Years Eve. The hours will be 6:30 pm to 9:00pm. It promises to be tasty so if you’re interested in joining us there are still a few seats available for booking. Just give us a call at 652-3354 (652-DELI) and we’ll set things up for you.
And while we have the chance, we hope everyone out there has a fabulous Christmas and an even better New Year!
It’s the season for get-togethers and last night we hosted Avant-Garde Construction and Management Inc. for their Christmas party. If you look at the photo below you’ll see they were seated at our long communal table.
What kind of food might be involved at a Christmas party at the Urban Deli? For Avant-Garde it began with appetizers. We served up roasted garlic and artichoke dip, bacon wrapped scallops and char crusted pork tenderloin. There was also a choice of seafood chowder, spinach salad, caesar salad, or house salad.
For the main course guests had a choice of smoked whole lobster (smoked in house, at the Deli), rack of ribs, smoked herb crusted 1/2 chicken accompanied by rice garlic mashed potatoes or fries (our potato frites).
And for dessert it was a choice of molten chocolate cake, our now famous sour cream lemon pie or a candy cane cheese cake.
We also had some evening musical entertainment provided by Jessica Darrah.
And that was our Saturday night at the Urban Deli. A big thank you to everyone, including our wonderful staff, and a Merry Christmas to Avant-Garde!
The Avant Garde Christmas party at the Urban Deli. That's our Liane on the left and way off in the background you can see Jessica Darrah performing. Photo via Gord's phone.
Since we’re still pretty new, we come upon a lot of firsts. Yesterday (Friday) we had yet another one. A couple of our customers, Cyril and Trena, got engaged at the Urban Deli!
It came about this way: the romantic couple have very busy schedules. In fact, they’re so busy it forced Cyril to propose to Trena over a smoked meat sandwich while lunching at the Deli. We’re honored they chose our place for their happy moment. And congratulations to the lucky couple!
Music tonight
By the way, tonight is yet another of our musical Saturday nights. It gets underway at 7:30 with Jessica Darrah. We’ll also have our guy Wes Jagoe and friends. They’ll be dropping in to see what musical confections might be in the air to be had, so there will be a little bit of everything tonight. If you’re in the Uptown area, pay us a visit. We think you’ll like some of the musical notes we’ll be hitting!
