Snake, kangaroo on the menu

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/07/2016 (3333 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SEVEN SISTERS FALLS — Alligator grilled cheese to go? Or would you prefer the rattlesnake canape takeout? How about a side order of kangaroo tomato soup?

Jennifer’s — the restaurant that keeps going away and coming back — is back again, this time reincarnated as, ta-da, a food truck.

Jennifer’s first opened in Seven Sisters Falls as a sit-down restaurant 23 years ago. It was an immediate sensation with lineups out the door, in a town of roughly 200 people, 100 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg.

Not much has changed. “Last Sunday, there was standing-room only. There was a lineup right out to the street,” said Debbie McLean of Evergreen Realty, whose office is nearby.

“The lemon chicken is most famous, and the Hungarian goulash is to die for. My sister is a diehard cranberry almond chicken fan,” said McLean.

Those meals all sell for a flat $10, or $8.95 plus tax. It’s cash only but there is an ATM.

Simplicity is what drove chefs Jozef and Nathalie Slavik to downsize to a food truck. “No dishes, no service,” Jozef explained.

Now they just do what they love: cook.

Jennifer’s Picnic is on Highway 307. Customers eat at picnic tables with umbrellas for shade, or buy takeout.

Why do Jozef and Nathalie keep disappearing and coming back? Jennifer’s once closed for two-and-a-half years, and another time for 18 months. “We did that because running a restaurant is a tough business,” he said.

Essentially, they weren’t spending enough time with their children. “We open and close according to what our family needs,” said Jozef. “Everyone wants to grow their business. Sure, you can make more money — but you cannot buy any more years of living,”

‘The lemon chicken is most famous, and the Hungarian goulash is to die for. My sister is a diehard cranberry almond chicken fan’– Seven Sisters Falls resident Debbie McLean, whose office is near Jennifer’s

The Slaviks took it a step further when they closed from May to October for 10 years. Everyone said they were crazy. The summer months are when Seven Sisters, a gateway to the north Whiteshell, gets cottager and tourist traffic.

“We heard it all,” said Nathalie. “‘It ain’t going to last. Against all odds. You guys are going to go out of business.’” But when they came back, their customers came back, too.

“If you give people real food, they will come,” said Jozef. “If you’re not honest, they won’t.”

Honest? “If you give them cheap stuff, they won’t come back.”

Their family excursions included a month on the Mackenzie River in the Northwest Territories, in a makeshift houseboat: a pontoon boat with a tent on top. “We slept on it, lived on it. Your living room was the shoreline,” said Nathalie. Another time they lived in Mexico for six months, while their children attended a school run by missionaries. The couple also bought a 12-passenger van to cart their children and their friends around, including trips to the United States.

With their kids all grown up, Jozef, 55, and Nathalie, 50, opened the food truck.

Jozef was born in Communist-controlled Slovakia (then part of Czechoslovakia) to Hungarian parents. The family escaped in 1979 on the pretext of travelling to Bulgaria for vacation, then detoured through Yugoslavia, with its looser border control, into Austria. They arrived at a refugee camp south of Vienna with a single suitcase. Next stop: Winnipeg.

After an eight-year stint cooking in Iqaluit, Nunavut, and four years in pricey Winnipeg restaurants, Jozef ventured on his own. Why Seven Sisters?

“Fishing. The nature. I always say I cook in paradise,” he said. Plus there is “free food” such as mushrooms, fiddleheads, berries and fish. He gets up before dawn to catch frogs for his frog legs, another unexpected delicacy at their food truck.

Nathalie’s path is more conventional, but with a fateful twist. She is from Quebec and was looking for her first teaching job. She saw one advertised in Beausejour, and thought it sounded like a nice little French town. It turned out the only thing French about the town was its name.

They continue to defy convention. One of their promotions is a draw for all the famous Jennifer’s wienerschnitzel you can eat — from July 1 to Labour Day. This year’s lucky winner is Morgan Maguire of Lac du Bonnet.

“Wienerschnitzel is my go-to food,” said Maguire, 21, who plans to limit her schnitzel intake to once a week. “When I was seven, I would only eat chicken fingers and fries. My mom took me to Jennifer’s and told me the schnitzel was just fancy chicken fingers. I ate them and told her they were the best chicken fingers I ever had.”

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca