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Lacombe’s Cilantro and Chive has ‘food on plates’ again

Dining room service opens within health guidelines
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General Manager Jason Burns and Owner Rieley Kay are happy to have ‘food on plates’ again at Cilantro and Chive in Lacombe. (Todd Colin Vaughan/Lacombe Express)

Cilantro and Chive has joined Phase 1 of the Alberta relaunch plan, with the opening of the dining room within provincial health guidelines.

“It is definitely exciting to get people back into the building and back into the atmosphere. It is nice to have some excitement and somewhat of a new normal, “Rieley Kay, owner, said.

The restaurant hosted a soft opening first before their official opening, in order to ensure their added health guidelines — which can be found on their website — would work efficiently.

“It was like opening a new restaurant times 100, with the amount of stresses. We want to ensure our guest interactions and engagements is how it would have been normally with enhanced protocols and safety,” Kay said.

Jason Burns, general manager, added it was great to have food on plates again.

“It went very well and the support from the community throughout the whole last couple of months has been incredible — especially with takeout and delivery,” he said.

The continued support throughout the pandemic has made it easier to covering the costs of safety supplies.

“Ensuring that safety is the top priority. We have sourced masks from a local company, which has been great. We also have Blindman hand sanitizer,” Kay said.

Kay and his staff have also had the time to look at many of their other procedures in the restaurant — not COVID-19 related.

“Absolutely everything we have done has been looked at from all angles to ensure we can be sustainable and bring excitement to the community. We want to ensure our team and our guests are being looking after,” he said.

Burns added quality,l ocally-sourced, fresh ingredients has remained a core element to what they do.

“We spent a lot of time ensuring that will stay the same. It is easy to use something cheaper because the price of goods is going up — but we don’t want to change who we are. Rieley started this business years ago as a catering company using fresh, local product,” he said.

He added all the changes they have made has been made easier by the commitment of their team.

“We are getting ready to do something very stressful but our team is incredible and they are the ones that are doing it. These guys jobs have changed, but they are like ‘What can we do?’,” he said.

Kay added, “We are excited to be back, doing what we do in our home. There will be challenges and changes. It will be a fluid situation for us.”



todd.vaughan@lacombeexpress.com

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