By Galen Simmons, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
A new restaurant specializing in fried-chicken dishes made to order with fresh ingredients and whole foods has recently opened its doors, welcoming hungry New Hamburg and area customers into the flock.
The team at Mother Flockers Restaurant celebrated a soft launch of the takeout eatery at 174 Union St. in New Hamburg Nov. 22, a momentous occasion for owners Manu Bahl and Vanessa Gale that nearly didn’t happen after the pair had resigned themselves to opening a food truck following a months-long search for a brick-and-mortar restaurant, nearly to no avail.
“It’s our first restaurant and we are excited,” Bahl said during an interview just two days before the restaurant’s soft launch. “It took us forever, firstly, to find this place because of limited commercial real estate. … This was an Indian restaurant and they weren’t looking to sell, so we had to convince them to sell it.”
“First, we had spoken with the developer of this plaza,” Gale said. “Because we could find no real estate, we thought of asking, ‘How about if we set up a food truck, develop our customer base and when the (brick-and-mortar) restaurant comes, when the real estate comes, we’ll move into a physical location?’ “
Bahl and Gale were literally one day away from putting a deposit on a food truck when they had a conversation with Greg Voisin, the owner of the plaza where their restaurant is now located, in the nearby Sobeys parking lot. The pair was working with Voisin to finalize the food-truck deal when they made one, last, ditch effort to see if Voisin might have a physical space they could open Mother Flockers in.
Voisin said he would try one more time to see if any existing businesses were willing to sell and, just 10 minutes later, he came back with a proposal to sell from the owners of Turmeric Indian Bistro.
“It was last minute. Very last minute,” Gale said.
But the pair’s dream had always been to open a restaurant, so they scrapped their food-truck plans and jumped headfirst into opening Mother Flockers Restaurant.
The name, which has garnered tonnes of attention on social media and through local news outlets, is a playful hint that the restaurant is like the mother hen of what will ultimately become a whole flock of restaurants.
“We know our name is a play on words and we understand some people may be offended, but the original idea comes from the mother of our flock and we’re leaning into the play on words,” Gale said.
“We had one person who was offended by it and he posted about it on Facebook,” Bahl added. “It was an anonymous post and he deleted it. I am thankful to this community, to be very honest. I am feeling as if I am sitting in my home. They are so welcoming, so kind-hearted and I am in loved with this town.”
The drive behind opening a takeout restaurant in New Hamburg was what Bahl and Gale saw as a lack of options while visiting friends in town.
“There was only pizza in this area, so we were like, ‘We’re not far, let’s come up with some better ideas,’ ” Bahl said. “We started with only wings; we were going to do a wide variety of wings, and then we thought, ‘How wide can we go with this?’ ”
As Bahl is a vegetarian, Gale took it upon herself to painstakingly develop an original recipe for Mother Flockers’ fried-chicken dishes, which include traditional fried chicken, wings, tenders, sandwiches, wraps and more.
She said she would stay up all night testing and retesting her recipe until it was delicious, replicable by the line cooks in the Mother Flockers kitchen and, most importantly of all, leaves anyone who eats it feeling good.
“Every time we went somewhere to eat, we would leave that place feeling nauseous,” Gale said. “So, we know they’re using canola oils, which are GMO. That’s an issue for a lot of people. We know they’re using the cheapest ingredients. Even from us finding our own suppliers; we found one supplier that had sort of cheap ingredients that we would never use, but we know a lot of places are using them. So that’s why if we won’t eat it ourselves, we won’t serve it to you or anyone else.
“We want to do fast food better, and our chicken tastes good from real ingredients, not from MSG.”
Bahl also wanted to ensure there were plenty of vegetarian dishes on the menu, which he took the lead in creating. Items like cauliflower bites, battered mushrooms, salads and spring rolls can be found throughout the menu, offering plenty of options for everyone.
And, to maintain a small piece of Turmeric Indian Bistro’s legacy, Bahl and Gale have included a number of Indian dishes on the menu customers of the previous restaurant may have become accustomed to like chili paneer, lemon garlic chicken tikka, chana masala and, of course, fresh-made naan. The restaurant also offers a number of Indian fusion dishes like the paneer burger, Punjab fries and butter-chicken poutine.
As Turmeric had catering contracts with local schools and New Hamburg Lanes, Gale and Bahl said they have agreed to continue honouring those contracts through their new business.
While the pair had originally offered a full breakfast menu, after the soft launch, they announced on Facebook they would be taking a step back from serving breakfast at least until they improve their preparation process to ensure faster service.
Mother Flockers Restaurant is open Sunday to Thursday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
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