Replacing the roof on the former Dairy Queen building is only one of the changes people can expect to see this summer.
Shirley Henderson and Blaine Cantalope confirmed that the rumours about converting the vacant lot into an A&W are true.
The couple recently purchased the vacant lot from the Ferraro family.
“We’re ripping it apart and we’re slowly putting it back together right now,” said Cantalope. “We were hoping for a late August opening, but we don’t know for sure.”
Currently the owners expect renovations to alter the look of the building, but they deemed the transition worthwhile because of its prominent location within the community.
“Location is like 90 per cent of the success of a restaurant,” Cantalope explained. “Basically we’re going to put a new façade on the outside, a new roof and change the layout of the interior so it’s like ripping it down to the outside walls and starting over.”
Cantalope is new to the fast food industry, but his wife (who operates the Castlegar A&W franchise) has been a veteran in the service industry for years.
“As soon as we open, I’ll have been in the industry for a day,” he said. “But my wife has been doing it in Castlegar since ‘94—she built that one.”