Menu update: gluten-free and getting educated

We’ve had all sorts of kind words and great conversations with customers and others since we’ve opened. And since we’ve opened, one phrase keeps popping up: gluten-free.”

Canadian Celiac Association logoThey say you can’t be all things to all people and, while that may be true, you can certainly try. So we’ve started the Urban Deli on a journey to educate ourselves and implement gluten-free menu items for persons with celiac disease and for those who simply want gluten-free menu options.

We will offer gluten-free menu items very soon. We’re aiming at September 21 for an updated menu. The gluten-free items will include (but won’t be limited to):

  • Seafood Chowder
  • Ribs
  • Salads & Dressings
  • Mac’n Cheese (both the noodles and cheese sauce)
  • Noodles with a light tomato sauce and meatballs
  • Gluten-free bread – making many of our sandwich choices gluten-free

We’ve spoken to a number of persons with celiac disease and other people who simply want gluten-free options. With the subject coming up so frequently, we quickly saw that it was an important aspect of a menu and that we needed to incorporate gluten-free choices.

We’re not exactly the best informed people on this subject but our research (and education) has begun. We’ll be contacting the local chapter of the Canadian Celiac Association here in Saint John so we can meet with them and they can take us into their world – allow us to learn what life is like for people with celiac disease.  And we’re look forward to it!

Thanks to everyone who has spoken to us and helped point us in the right direction. Changes like these only come about through your input, so please remember any menu suggestions or favourite recipes are welcome through our web site or by dropping into the Deli and saying, “Hi!”

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Canada, chefs and a few questions

We saw this article in the Telegraph-Journal: Canadian chefs’ aprons are in a twist. According to the story, “The country’s top kitchen gurus have had their aprons in a twist since learning last week that an upcoming book profiling the world’s 100 most-promising culinary talents fails to include a single Canuck.”

Disappointing, to say the least. So our question is:

Do you think Canadian chefs should be in there?

Better still, especially for the foodie-travellers out there, what are some of the best restaurants across the country, in your opinion?

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Yes, we’ll be open for New Brunswick Day (Monday)

Just in case anyone might have wondered (because Monday is a holiday), we will be open with our regular 11:00am to 8:00pm hours. So if you’re in Uptown Saint John on Monday, drop in an see us. (Sorry, we’ll be closed on Sunday – but we do hope to be opening on Sundays soon. Really!)

With New Brunswick being the birthday kid on Monday (225 years old!), there are quite a few things going on, many of them in the Market Square area, just down the street from us. You’ll find some information at Tourism Saint John (August events). (En français? Allez ici.) It sounds as if there will be lots of live entertainment.

Also open and celebrating on Monday, and also in Market Square, the New Brunswick Museum. (Si vous préférez la page en français, s’il vous plaît cliquer ici.)

No, our French is not very good. We just thought if someone’s first language was French and they preferred seeing the information that way, it’s easy enough to link to it.

Have a great New Brunswick Day! 225 years ain’t no small thing, you know. That is some kind of history!

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Uptown or Downtown?

We saw a story on CBC New Brunswick today, Saint John urged to rename city centre ‘downtown.’ We’re curious to hear what you think. From the CBC story:

A former Saint John mayor (Eric Teed) is pushing to have the long-held expression for the city’s centre switched from the confusing “uptown” moniker to the more traditional term of “downtown.”

When asked, Liz, the owner of the Urban Deli, said, “That’s crazy!” We’ve had a few tweets from others that seem to agree.

Liz is actually very proud of being part of Uptown Saint John. Of course, she’s always been a fan of the urban core, everywhere, feeling that’s where the heart of a city should be. It’s where all the vitality of its business, culture, arts and, yes, people who live there, should be and interact.

She has some pretty strong opinions on this, particularly in the context of Saint John. When we asked her about this uptown-downtown thing she started in on how there are more important things to worry about, like the usual issues that affect any city’s urban core — housing, drugs, business support and so on.

But what do you think? Uptown? Downtown? Does it matter to you? We’d like to hear what you think.

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About our hours

A few people have pointed out that we haven’t been very clear, here on the site, about our hours. They couldn’t find them anywhere! We did have them in a post but neglected to put them up anywhere obvious. Sorry!

And thanks for the heads up. You’ll now see them posted over in the right hand column, just below our address. You’ll also see an “Hours” page up in our navigation at the top.

Also, while we close at 8:00pm, Liz says, “… As long as your food order is into our kitchen by 8:00pm you can sit back and relax … We won’t rush you out by 8. And we promise not to ask you to help close!” 🙂

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King Street reboot – living it up, uptown

There is story in the Telegraph-Journal today that highlights the Urban Deli as it talks about, “… a resurgence of commercial activity on King Street, the spine of the uptown core.” The story is I’d like a King Street redo, hold the pickle and even has a pic of Liz and the deli.

We’re pretty sure that with the other businesses on King and with the kind of activity we’re seeing that it won’t be long before people are asking, “Is this the same King Street? There are so many people! So much going on!”

Well, if Liz and her team have anything to do with it, that will be the case.

Although only open a few days, we’ve seen loads of people, heard lots of stories and made a huge number of new friends. One thing that seems to catch the eye of the people who come in is our Muffuletta sandwich.

Now, you can search it on the web and find out what it is but what you probably won’t see are details on the Urban Deli’s take on the Muffuletta. So we’re trying to get Liz’s sister (who is kind of an encyclopedia of food) to sit down and write us a brief description that we can post.

Hopefully she will soon (despite running around all day helping out at the deli) and we can put that online for you.

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Because you asked, our hours will be …

Dan left a comment asking what our hours would be so we went to Liz and asked, “So, what will the hours be?” (We thought it would be good to know when we’d be working.)

So here they are, though this is tentative. (see update at the end of the post). Hours (for the first week, at least):

  • Monday – Saturday 11 a.m. –  8pm

And that’s the plan. We’ll try to make these official very soon, so we don’t have to say “tentative” anymore. Think of the Deli, when it opens, as being in a “beta” stage, as the software people like to say. As we get feedback from people, we’ll likely make changes to make it better and as close to what you expect as possible.

An update:

Thanks to the comments, we realized we should provide a more for information on our hours.

One of the reasons we say “tentative” is because things like the hours the Deli is open could change. Originally, Liz had the Deli going to be open till 11:00pm. But we decided to have it 8:00pm, at least for the first week, to get a sense for how things are operating and what people like and/or don’t like, and what is actually practical.

After the first week, Liz is thinking of having the Urban Deli open till 11:00pm Thursday through Saturday. It’s a bit of a balancing act though between what people would like and what the economics allow us to do. But we definitely would like to be open and available later in the evening for those people looking for somewhere to drop in after a show or other engagement.

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