When the smoke cleared…

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/05/2020 (2314 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

How’s this for a double-whammy?

Last October, Fraser Mason opened Sandy-Lou’s Barbecue, a no-frills eatery specializing in burgers, dogs and ribs, on the ground level of a historic, downtown hotel. Three-and-a-half months later, days after the building’s owner allegedly threatened to raise the rent by 35 per cent, Mason gathered his pots and pans and walked out the door. (Because the case is currently before the courts — both sides are suing one another for breach of contract — we’re not naming the locale-in-question.)

On March 1, Mason reopened his restaurant, this time dubbing it Sandy-Lou’s Diner, inside an equally iconic setting — the LaSalle Hotel at 346 Nairn Ave., a 106-year-old, three-story inn situated a stone’s throw away from the Louise Bridge. Of course, everybody knows what happened next. Beginning in mid-March, dine-in restaurants across the continent, Sandy-Lou’s included, were forced to close their doors, owing to COVID-19.

Given how things have gone during his first seven months on the job, we wondered if Mason, whose locale has remained open for pickup or delivery through Uber Eats, Skip the Dishes and Door Dash, feels completely snakebit? Not a whit, he replies.

“I was discussing just that with my brother and uncle the other day and told them if anything, this whole ordeal has probably made me tougher,” says the 49-year-old father of four.

“If you saw the movie Forrest Gump, you’ll recall the scene when, after Forrest buys a fishing boat, he and Lieutenant Dan get caught in this tremendous hurricane while they’re out on the gulf. Except because they’re the last boat left out there, they end up catching all the shrimp and becoming super-successful. That’s the approach I’ve been taking. Just like Forrest Gump, I’m facing the storm head-on, hoping good things come my way after it passes.”

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Mason grew up on Union Avenue, just 11 blocks from where he now tends a grill, six days a week. He caught on with Conklin Shows as a carnival barker after graduating from Kildonan East Collegiate. While criss-crossing the continent with the travelling midway, he was exposed to regional dishes, such as Coney Island hotdogs, po’ boy sandwiches and Nashville hot chicken, a set of circumstances that turned him into “a bit of a foodie.” When he became a father at the age of 21, he began replicating what he’d enjoyed sinking his teeth into on the road, whenever meal time rolled around at home.

In 2018, following a long manufacturing career, Mason decided a change was in order. His marriage had recently ended and he viewed that as the perfect opportunity to start over, both personally and professionally. An ardent fan of the TV show Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, he purchased a commercial smoker, which he intended to use to turn out wood-smoked fare for catering purposes. There was one major flaw with that plan: it hadn’t dawned on him one isn’t legally allowed to run a barbecue biz out of their backyard.

Undaunted, around this time last year Mason enrolled in a five-week, self-employment training course run by the YMCA-YWCA of Winnipeg. The minute that program ended, he began hunting around for commercial kitchen space. He opened Sandy Lou’s — named for his mother — Nov. 1, 2019 on the main level of the aforementioned, unidentified downtown hotel. For the first while, he was content preparing wood-smoked ribs and brisket for catering purposes only. But because the kitchen there is adjacent to a licensed lounge, customers stopping by for a drink began placing food orders, which he happily filled.

Mason’s homestyle fare was just beginning to become a hit with the downtown lunch crowd, as well as people arriving downtown early for Winnipeg Jets games, when the rent dispute occurred in mid-February. Coincidentally, the same day he was notified of the 35 per cent bump, he spotted an online blurb advertising vacant restaurant space at the LaSalle Hotel. That’s when he decided to leave things up to a judge, and departed downtown Winnipeg for the cosy confines of Elmwood.

Sandy Lou’s Diner held its grand opening March 1. Three days prior to that date, Mason hosted a soft opening in honour of National Chili Day, which falls annually on the last Thursday in February. To mark the occasion, he and his mother, who initially was against seeing her name in lights but has since come around to the idea, prepared a few vats of chili, which they turned around and served free of charge in the form of sloppy joe sandwiches to the hotel’s 45 permanent residents, many of whom are unemployed.

About Sandy Lou’s chili: besides being slathered on fatboys and fries, a variation of it also turns up in the form of a concoction known as Cincinnati chili, another dish Mason twigged into during his carny days. Named by no less an authority than the Smithsonian Institution as one of the “20 most iconic foods in America,” Cincinnati chili, also called chili spaghetti, isn’t chili in the conventional, con carne sense. Rather, it’s a spicy meat sauce containing beans and fried onions served over a mountain of pasta, topped with a whack of shredded cheddar cheese. Mason is fairly certain his establishment is the only one in Winnipeg offering the age-old dish, an assertion shared by an elderly woman who stopped by to pick up an order a few weeks ago.

“She said she hadn’t even thought of Cincinnati chili in eons, and couldn’t wait to come down and try some,” Mason says, mentioning because he rather enjoys the sound of his own voice, nothing makes him happier than explaining the origins of the various foodstuffs listed on his menu to curious customers. “She got in touch later to let us know it tasted just the way she remembered it from when she first had it in Ohio, which is one of the best compliments we’ve ever received.”

When Mason is eventually allowed to reopen for dine-in purposes, he’ll not only be servicing customers in his 16-seat eating space, he’ll also be filling orders for people enjoying a cool one in the LaSalle’s bar and on its adjoining outdoor patio, overlooking the Red River. Heck, he’s looking forward to al fresco dining so much, two Fridays ago he spent a good chunk of his shift outside slow-cooking pulled pork, Texas beef brisket, ribs and sausage in his smoker-on-wheels, which is now permanently stationed in the hotel’s adjoining parking lot.

“It might sound odd to say given everything that’s happened, but it was honestly the best day of my life,” he says, smiling from ear to ear. “Italians will tell you the secret to their dough has something to do with the Mediterranean (Sea) and surrounding air. That was the first time I’d fired up the smoker since moving over here and not only did it run better than it ever has before, the food turned out amazing. Now I’m thinking it’s all thanks to the dirty, rotten Red.”

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca