Keeping up with Jonesy’s

EAST ST. PAUL — Food fight!

McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski created a bit of a stir earlier this year when he released a video of himself taking what appeared to be a tentative bite of an Arch Burger, the global chain’s latest menu item. Soon thereafter, senior representatives from competing fast-food conglomerates such as Burger King and Wendy’s playfully mocked Kempczinski by filming themselves enthusiastically diving into their own fare — an online trend that was rapidly branded as the “CEO taste test” or “burger battle.”

Last month, Tony Brambilla, co-owner of Jonesy’s, a home-style restaurant in East St. Paul that celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2025, was persuaded to participate in the gastronomic goings-on. Parked at a table in the main dining area of his and his partner Kevin Jones’ 110-seat establishment, Brambilla announced, “Let’s see what we have going on here,” as he prepared to chow down on a Roadhouse Burger, which consists of a half-pound beef patty topped with bacon, cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato and crispy onions, served on a brioche bun.

“I’ve had this many times and it never gets old,” he continued between mouthfuls, being careful not to drip any mayo on a well-groomed beard or dark Jonesy’s-branded hoodie.

The clip, accompanied by a humorous bloopers reel, was subsequently posted on Jonesy’s social-media feeds, causing a viewer to suggest Brambilla do a followup challenge with another of the restaurant’s signature offerings — a two-patty behemoth with all the fixings dubbed the Monster Stacker.

“Now that burger will put all the other burgers and CEOs to shame,” they commented.

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In 1998, Jones was the assistant general manager for Canad Inns Transcona. For a while, he and Brambilla, the same location’s head chef, had been weighing the possibility of striking out on their own. Each of them was averaging 70-hour work weeks and they concluded if they were going to be clocking that many hours, they might as well be doing it for themselves, Jones says, seated next to Brambilla in Jonesy’s softly-lit lounge, steps away from a well-stocked, 225-gallon saltwater fish tank.

Jones, who got his start in the restaurant biz at age 13 when he caught on at Perkins, was driving along Birds Hill Road one July afternoon on his way to Lockport, where he intended to spend a rare day off fishing. He was going past a strip mall two minutes north of Lagimodière Boulevard when he spotted a “For Lease” sign in the window of what had been a succession of dining spots, including Werner’s and Paul’s Family Village Restaurant.

He paused to jot down the listed phone number. A few days later, he, his wife Kathy and Brambilla popped by to take a look around the then-2,400-square-foot property.

“There wasn’t much to see — pretty much everything inside had been removed — but we thought with East St. Paul growing steadily, it might be a good opportunity,” Jones says. Nonetheless, 18 months passed before they were able to take possession of the site at 3133 Birds Hill Rd. in January 2000.

“We tried to borrow money, nobody would back us, so we basically maxed out our credit cards to finally get things off the ground,” Brambilla states.

Four months of renovations followed — a period they also spent devising a menu and tossing around potential business names. They were stumped as to the latter. That was, until Jones’ wife suggested Jonesy’s, Jonesy having been her nickname when she was a bartender at Club Soda in Windsor Park.

Jones and Brambilla, both in their mid-50s and both fathers of two, shake their heads as they recall a preview evening they hosted for friends, family and associates, ahead of their May 1, 2000 grand opening. Every person they invited showed up, resulting in out-the-door lineups and long waits for meals.

“It was just me and Tony in the kitchen, with Kathy the lone person out front,” Jones remembers. “It remained that way for the first six months — back then we were open for breakfast, as well as lunch and dinner — and all I can say is thank goodness that was before social media came along, when you were allowed to learn from your mistakes and not get killed by negative reviews on Day 1. There was definitely a learning curve but gradually, it all came together.”

“We don’t drive fancy cars, we don’t wear fancy clothes, we don’t call attention to ourselves. We’re just two guys who live in the area who run a rural restaurant.”

Comfort food has been the name of the game there since the beginning. Among the ongoing crowd-pleasers are steak, ribs and chicken, as well as an eye-catching appetizer called an onion blossom that was inspired by a similar foodstuff reportedly invented in 1985 at a New Orleans restaurant, before it was popularized by Outback Steakhouse a few years later.

Onion bloom. Blooming onion. Onion mum. There are plenty of names for it, Brambilla explains, but it basically boils down to an oversized onion that is sliced to resemble a flower, then battered, deep-fried and served with a savoury dip. The pair believe theirs is the only local restaurant that serves it (Tony Roma’s onion loaf consists of individual onion rings baked as one) likely due to the fact it can be, in their words, a bit problematic.

“If I’m the guy making an onion blossom and the kitchen’s already busy, I have to dedicate five full minutes to it and it alone,” Brambilla says, mentioning the stainless-steel cutting apparatus they use to achieve the flower shape was imported from Italy. “Not to mention that it takes up an entire deep fryer, and we only have two. It’s the sort of thing that as soon as you serve one, a neighbouring table goes, ‘Wow, that looks good,’ and suddenly you’re making two or three more.”

Another drawing card is Jonesy’s house-made Whiskey River basting sauce. Its key ingredient is Jack Daniel’s Tennessee whiskey, a set of circumstances that became difficult to manage when in March 2025 the Manitoba government ceased sales of American liquor products in response to tariffs imposed on Canadian goods by U.S. President Donald Trump. When the province briefly lifted the ban in December 2025 to sell off reserves, they scooped up every bottle they could get their hands on, says Brambilla, mentioning bottles of Jonesy’s Whiskey River Sauce are available for purchase throughout the year at Lockport Grocery in Lockport.

Melissa Unrau has been the restaurant’s general manager since 2022, when Kathy Jones relinquished that role. Unrau, who started there as a server in 2006, equates the atmosphere at Jonesy’s with that of the TV sitcom Cheers. Only instead of “where everybody knows your name,” it’s more like where Unrau and the rest of the 55-person staff know almost everybody’s order.

“There’s this one group of guys — Cliff (no, not Clavin), Ron and Joey — who’ve been showing up every Tuesday evening at 6:15 p.m. like clockwork for I want to say 11 years,” Unrau says. “People seated nearby will ask, ‘What, is royalty coming tonight?’ because we’ll have the guys’ wine ready and their order in the queue, five minutes before they arrive.”

Unrau also has a list of numbers stored in her phone for regulars she gives a heads-up to, whenever their favourite soup or sandwich is a daily special. Recently, for example, she texted close to 20 customers to alert them that dill-pickle soup was being served that week, so if they wanted a bowl, they had better make a reservation.

Jones and Brambilla, who through two separate expansions have more than doubled the original size of Jonesy’s to what is currently 5,500 square feet, don’t have a scripted playbook for 26 years of success. They kid, comparing themselves to a family physician who is no longer taking new patients, when they describe Friday and Saturday nights as being so busy in the dining room that they almost have to take the phone off the hook, to spare the kitchen from take-out orders.

“We don’t drive fancy cars, we don’t wear fancy clothes, we don’t call attention to ourselves. We’re just two guys who live in the area who run a rural restaurant,” Jones says.

“Every year we think, ‘This has got to be it… it can’t get any busier.’ But then it does, for which we’re eternally grateful.”

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