Hungry holiday habit Lorette hot spot continues to draw ravenous summer crowds for its fat boys and other fare By: David Sanderson Posted: 3:00 AM CDT Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/08/2024 (450 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

LORETTE — If this summer long weekend is anything like past affairs, traffic along Lorette’s main drag will be unusually heavy, particularly in the vicinity of an unassuming red-and-white structure that has been dishing out homestyle hamburgers and hot dogs since the Kennedy administration.

Tessa Galbichka runs Brian’s Drive-Inn at 1220 Dawson Rd. together with her husband Jamie Sinclair and her mother Shannon Galbichka.

It never fails, the younger Galbichka says, seated at one of four shaded picnic tables parked close to the seasonal locale, which also draws a crowd for its selection of hard and soft ice cream.

Winnipeggers escaping to the lake on Friday or Saturday will phone in their order as they’re barrelling east past Tinkertown, to let staff know they’ll be by shortly to grab a bite for the road.

The reverse occurs on Sunday and Monday, when campers and cottagers returning from Whiteshell Provincial Park and Lake of the Woods reach out, to ensure their “usual” is ready and waiting when they roll up in their vehicle, on their way home.

“We also get people from the city who make the drive for lunch or supper, especially on the holiday Monday when other places are closed,” says Galbichka, 48, whose non-insulated locale typically opens for business in mid-March, before closing for the winter during the first or second week of October, depending on the temperature.

“Unfortunately, there’s been a ton of construction this summer on the (Trans-Canada) highway where you turn off to Lorette. I’m not sure I’d want to go through all that for a burger and fries, but bless the hearts of those who do.”

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Camille and Anna Michaud established Camille’s Snack Bar at the present-day home of Brian’s Drive-Inn in 1962.

Much like today, city dwellers made the trek there for Camille’s “famous fries,” according to their daughter Nicole, the eldest of four siblings.

“Dad was known far and wide for his french fries while my mother was responsible for everything else, pretty much,” Nicole says, laughingly recalling one of her parents’ top sellers was the “extra burger,” so-named for the lone slice of tomato that graced a conventional cheeseburger.

The Michauds, who eventually introduced fish and chips and chicken dinners to the menu, ran Camille’s Snack Bar with the assistance of their kids, Nicole included, until 1987, the year it was sold to outside interests. The next set of owners continued to operate it as Camille’s.

It was Brian Prior, a bus driver for the Seine River School Division, who switched the moniker to Brian’s Drive-Inn, after purchasing it in 1993. Prior, who died in 2020, and his wife Anne remained at the helm until 2001.

From what Galbichka understands, there were three other ownership groups before she, Jamie, her mom and her father Stanley, who died in June 2023 at age 75, arrived on the scene in 2016.

Not that they weren’t already well-familiar with the 800-square-foot nook. Far from it.

Galbichka presently lives in Landmark but she grew up just outside of Lorette, where she attended school until Grade 12.

She and her classmates at Collège Lorette Collegiate regularly frequented Camille’s/Brian’s, while her father, who was raised in the largely French-Canadian town and later worked for its water-and-sewer division, used to regale her and her four siblings with stories of hanging out there with his buddies when he was a teenager.

Directly before acquiring Brian’s, Galbichka’s mom, who underwent a double-lung transplant two years ago, was running a combination hotel/restaurant in Amaranth, 90 kilometres northwest of Portage la Prairie.

As for Galbichka, a mother of two grown sons who both cook alongside her five days a week, she can hardly recall a period when she wasn’t involved in the hospitality industry, in one capacity or another.

“My family rented the Highway 206 Grill in Landmark, but I started working there when it was still the Country Kettle, better known as the one-pound spud, because you could get a whole pound of fries for 99 cents,” she says, noting she continued to work as a part-time server at one spot or another, even when she was employed in the accounting department at Maple Leaf Foods, in Winnipeg.

In June 2015 the owner of Brian’s approached Galbichka’s sister, with whom she was friends, to let her know that would be her final summer there. Galbichka’s sibling relayed the message to their parents, figuring they might be interested.

The next thing Galbichka knew, she was toiling at Brian’s full-time, to learn the ropes ahead of her family assuming the reins the following year.

“Initially we weren’t telling customers what was going on, but as more and more people recognized me — a lot of my old classmates and teachers still live in the area and wondered what I was doing there — we started to let it out that we would be taking over,” she says.

The Galbichkas weren’t looking to reinvent the wheel when they were officially handed the keys in the spring of 2016.

That said, there were a number of changes they immediately instituted, which included dropping fried chicken and pizza — what was the point, they felt, when there was a perfectly fine Chicken Chef outlet down the block that offered both? — in favour of some healthier options, such as a tossed salad.

They also added their version of a fat boy, the Manitoba-born burger that comes topped with mayo, mustard, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles and chili sauce.

“Our chili does resemble what you get on a Greek-type burger in the city but we’re far from Greek,” Galbichka says with a chuckle.

“My mom is Ukrainian, my dad was a Slovak, my partner is First Nations and his mom is Scottish so yeah, lots of different recipes and flavours involved there.”

Galbichka smiles again when asked about Brian’s signature selection, a behemoth dubbed the Monster Burger, which carries all the same fixings as a fat boy, as well as two strips of bacon and an extra quarter-pound patty.

“There have been people who’ve requested triple and quadruple monster burgers, which is pretty impressive because my single patties are pretty substantial to begin with,” says Galbichka, who claims to know most of her regular customers by order rather than name.

(As if on cue, a gent rolls down the window of his parked car and silently holds up one finger, to indicate he’ll take a deluxe cheeseburger to go.)

Galbichka hears it all the time, how it must be nice to have her winters off.

What people sometimes fail to realize is that not unlike scores of others who manage small-town eating spots, she and her husband don’t take a single day off for eight months straight if you include opening and closing duties.

When the colder weather starts to roll around, they’re more than ready to put their feet up, albeit for a short spell.

“Mom and I still do a traditional Christmas dinner for everybody and preparing for it takes up most of December,” she says, letting Jamie know she’ll be there in a sec to assist with a growing lunchtime crowd.

“By the first week of January, though, we’re discussing the upcoming season’s menu, placing orders with our suppliers… the wheels definitely start turning again before you know it.”

One more thing; Brian’s Drive-Inn is a favourite on Facebook sites such as Manitoba Small Town Drive-in Reviews, but if there is one foodie Galbichka would most like to feed, it’s Noah Cappe, host of Food Network Canada’s Carnival Eats.

“I watch him religiously and to cook for him would be a dream of mine. Mind you, I’m not great under pressure, so even though I’ve made a billion burgers in my life, I’d probably be nervous as heck.”

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca