Kitcheness. Like Duchess. Like Countess. The Queen of the Kitchen.

Sarah Joseph wears the title well. She reigns over her sweet North Gower cafe and bistro, The Kitcheness, on Church Street with her faithful subjects (husband and children) close at hand.

 

Wonderful place for lunch

The cafe and bistro is close to the offices of Lagois Design·Build·Renovate, so the team knows it well. They like to grab lunch there or have meetings with food provided by The Kitcheness.

The Kitcheness is also a faithful supporter of the Lagois Ride for ROSSS (Rural Ottawa South Support Services).

The Kitcheness caters not only to meetings but to weddings, celebrations and parties with a wonderful assortment of salads and platters.

Favourite recipes

It seems a natural culmination of Sarah’s work as a professional chef. Following cooking school, she worked at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa and then at downtown restaurants. It was demanding work with a high turnover, so when she ended up as a chef at a retirement home, she figured she had found her perfect workplace.

“It was so rewarding,” she says. “I got to serve the residents, speak with them, hear their stories, talk about their favourite recipes.”

She also liked working with seasoned chefs. “I learned a lot,” she recalls. “We made everything from scratch.”

Meals to go from home

After her son was born, Sarah did home day care. She also started making meals to go for a small group of families who were busy or who had children with special needs and didn’t always have time to cook.

Later she was hired as the kitchen manager and chef at a large day care centre. It was a whole new experience on one hand because although she was working “in community”, she had never been in charge of budgeting or making the menu. She didn’t know it at the time, but it was the perfect training ground for opening her own business.

Sarah and her family sold their house in Barrhaven and moved to North Gower. And then everything changed with COVID. Like so many others during those years, she was laid off. It was, as she would find out later, a blessing in disguise.

She started creating meals to go out of her house again. She put out a small ad, and the service took off immediately.

For rent!

And then she spotted something that would change her life again. It was a For Rent sign on a building on Church Street. It had once been a bakery.

“I could just see it,” she says. “I went camping with my sister and drew up a floor plan by hand on the picnic table.”

She and her husband (who was Director of Maintenance at the retirement home where she was a chef) decided they would go ahead and invest in a new business. It meant renovating the building, but from the day The Kitcheness opened it was an instant success.

Very Important People

Adding to Sarah’s good fortune are the V.I.P.s in her life.

From the start her grandmother frequently showed up wearing her hairnet and dug right in ‒ cleaning, doing dishes and anything else that was needed. Now she’s working on a scrapbook of The Kitcheness.

Her mother’s retirement coincided with opening day at The Kitcheness, and she has been working there ever since. She does all the amazing baking.

“She has dedicated so much of her time into my business,” says Sarah. “She is as dedicated to it as I am.”

Sarah’s husband has a full-time job as a water technician, but he does all the financial work for The Kitcheness, picks up the groceries, looks after the kids, provides helpful advice.

Their 14-year-old daughter works at The Kitcheness after school two or three times a week. Their 8-year-old son peels carrots and cuts celery. And because they live so close to the bistro, it’s like their home away from home.

It’s a full family effort.

“I have a good support system,” Sarah says.