London Inc. May/June 2021 - 12

Upfront Food & Beverage

SERVING UP DIVERSIFICATION

Catering to consumers' new dining needs and preferences,
Grace Bodega makes a permanent statement

" I THINK RESTAURANTS
WILL HAVE TO DO
SOMETHING ELSE
IN ORDER TO BUILD
BACK " -Angela Murphy

IN THE EARLY days of the pandemic, it was knives down at
the upscale dinner spot Grace (www.gracelondon.ca). Even
among the bruised restaurant industry, ﬁne dining found
itself facing a particularly steep cliff - yes, we were all
ordering takeout, but not the kind of crafted small-plate fare
Grace trades in. The low-volume, high-cost business model
had vanished for the time being, ﬁnding itself wrenched out
of step with the cultural moment.
The response of the ﬁne-dining community was to make
a blue-collar pivot, and many restaurants began slinging the
people's food - burgers, pizzas, sandwiches and the kind of
things many of us gravitate towards when we think about
takeout comfort food.
For its part, Grace introduced Grace Pantry, selling local
produce, meat, organic wines and pantry items, and later
launched a takeout operation serving more quotidian items,
like sandwiches with a side of potato chips.
Now, a year in, what started as a way " to keep money
coming in and to deal with the food in-house " is set to
12 | londonincmagazine.ca | MAY / JUNE 2021

become a full-ﬂedged neighbour, as owner and chef Angie
Murphy opens Grace Bodega, a brick-and-mortar version of
the pantry and a place to shop for " really nice product, highly
curated, delicious local stuff, but in a more casual setting
than we have in Grace, " as she describes it.
" In order to rebuild the restaurant, we can't run this
pantry business out of the dining room, " Murphy says.
" We needed a space to keep doing what we've been doing,
be-cause people responded really well. "
The kinds of reinventions that many ﬁne-dining spots
made during the pandemic often had the effect of bringing
them closer to their communities. And such was the case
at Grace.
" We got so much incredible support from our core group
of people, " says Murphy. Just as people were eager to eat
their prepared meals, they were eager for their ingredients,
and for access to the local, farm-to-table food supply that
restaurants like Grace were built on.
Located at 211 Dundas Street, right next door to Grace
http://www.gracelondon.ca http://www.londonincmagazine.ca
London Inc. May/June 2021

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