Brenda O’Reilly, O’Reilly’s Irish Newfoundland Pub

Full name:	Brenda O’Reilly
Hometown:	St. John’s, NL
Current position:	Owner/operator: O’Reilly’s Irish Newfoundland Pub (1995), Food on the Run (2004), Rain Drizzle Fog (2007), Yellowbelly Brewery and Public House (2008)
First job:	Helper in school cafeteria (while a student); opened own catering business at age 17
Favourite job:	Current job
Education:	Food administration diploma, Cabot Institute (now College of the North Atlantic)

Brenda O’Reilly got her start in foodservice by helping out in her school cafeteria at lunches and recesses and has gone on to open and operate four successful foodservice businesses with her partner and husband, Craig Flynn. All located in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Brenda’s four businesses employ more than 100 staff. Her newest venture is a brew house restaurant in a historic building in downtown St. John’s.

It sounds like it’s been a lifelong passion of yours, but at what point would you say that you knew that hospitality was what you wanted to do professionally?

All my life. I always wanted to be a chef. I remember in school, you know, when you talk about it with your friends, “what do you want to be, what do you want to be,” and I always wanted to be a chef. And of course nobody wanted to be a chef at the time.

But I always worked in the industry and I was always fascinated with cooking. When my friends were out playing I was in the kitchen helping my mom bake bread.
If you think about what your normal work day looks like, how involved are you in the day-to-day operations of your busineses?

Well, if you think hostessing and bussing tables is involved, that’s how involved I am. I’m very actively involved in my businesses. I don’t like to see a customer wanting or needing for something, and if I’m in the building, I’ll help wherever I can. I do everything from scheduling to hiring … I do all the daily accounting, not the overall accounting, but the daily balancing of the cash. And of course making sure that the customer is happy. So, you know, it’s a long day.

And if you find that you’re in situation as an independent operator where you’re faced with a new challenge, where do you typically go for advice?

I go online a lot. I use the internet a lot, just to see what other people are doing.

If I’m looking to hire somebody new and I’m not sure quite what that role is, I’ll do some research on that role, see what other people have written in their job descriptions, so I can pick and choose the parts that make sense for me. I use it for suppliers, if I’m trying to find products.

As for moral support, I’m lucky enough to be working with my spouse, so we tend to talk things through a lot.
I reach out to other restaurateurs on occasion – I like to do that depending on the issue.

And I read books. You know, if I’m having problems with a particular employee, I try to figure out if it’s me, if it’s my style of management … sometimes with a message the problem is the person receiving it, and sometimes it’s the person delivering it.

Foodservice magazines, too … anything I can read about the industry or about peoples’ problems in the industry, so I can try and learn from it.

"Yellowbelly is still new, so I really like its brand new vibe …. but I just love O’Reilly’s. I just love everything about it. I love that people have fun there, I love that people work there, I love that everyone does well from it. It’s very rewarding that way."

And if you were on the giving end where advice is concerned, what kind of advice would you give to someone who is considering opening their own establishment?

I would say do your research and make sure you’ve got enough cash flow to get you through six months. (laughs)

But really, think through your concept. Make sure that it’s viable and long-lasting. A lot of people are there just for the moment. They’re too trendy. I do get asked for this kind of advice a lot, and it’s really about doing your homework: knowing your concept and knowing who your market is, and being true to that. You can’t be everything to everybody.
You mentioned that St. Patrick’s Day is the beginning of your busy season. How important is tourism to your operation, relative to working with your local market?

Yellowbelly is still new, and Food on the Run is totally local. In the summer it is busier than in the winter because we’re directly across from the largest hotel in St. John’s. But it’s still more word of mouth. That particular facility also houses our production kitchen for Yellowbelly and also our corporate office. We actually own that property; we own all of our properties. And that’s key, too, owning your own property in Newfoundland.

For O’Reilly’s, it’s 75% tourists, 25% local in the summer, and then the rest of the year, it’s 75% local, 25% tourists.

But tourism is important because they’re only looking for a fair deal. They’re not looking for a bargain price or the happy hour price or to not have to pay cover. They’re on vacation, and they just sort of go as they go and are happy to spend for the experience.
Why did you decide to branch out into brewing?

We’ve actually always been talking about that. When we first opened O’Reilly’s, we wanted to put a brew house in, but we didn’t have enough property, enough room to do it. They do take up a fair bit of space. We’ve always wanted to do it and it was a niche that wasn’t being tapped into in Newfoundland. There is a microbrewery here, but not a microbrewery/restaurant.

There was one, actually, that was doing quite well, but they were landlocked and limited by the amount of space they had. The restaurant was always full, but there was more money in food than in beer for them, so they decided to get rid of the brewery and expand the restaurant.

But we saw how busy they were from a beer perspective. We were watching it because it’s something we’d always talked about, and we just decided that when we bought this building, which was more than five years ago, that we would jump into doing a microbrewery.

Click here to read about how Brenda and Craig got their microbrew off the ground!
Apparently O’Reilly’s is a real hub for local musicians. How did you get started in that? Did you start of with open mic nights, or did groups approach you with an interest to play there?

To be honest, it comes from my love of Irish music. When I was living in Fort McMurray in the early 1980s there was a bar there called O’Reilly’s. It was more of a restaurant but it was really inspiring to me and I thought to myself, “I want to open an Irish bar called O’Reilly’s.” That really sparked something for me and it never left my mind. I wanted music to be a part of it because I so thoroughly love Irish music. I remember as a kid listening to it and my friends would roll their eyes, “Oh God, what are you listening to …” and all that, but I really enjoyed it.

So when we started O’Reilly’s we just went out and found some new up-and-comers and some old favourites and as we grew, they grew with us. A lot of them have gone on to great success and many of them still play there now. We have live music seven nights a week.

Seven nights a week?

Seven nights a week! And not just nights. We actually start at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday afternoon and we go all day until we close. We start at 6:00 p.m. on Sunday, 9:00 p.m. on Monday, 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday and 5:00 p.m. on Friday. We change acts three times on Friday and four times on Saturday. We have a lot of live music.

To me, when we decided that we were going to be a live Irish music venue, then that’s what we invested our money in. We spent a lot of money developing that side of it, so that people know there’s always something on the go at O’Reilly’s. So much so that most bars now in downtown St. John’s have music seven nights a week, just to compete.
And is there one evening or experience that stands out as being particularly memorable for you?

Out of the thousands of nights of music at O’Reilly’s that’s a hard one! But there are probably three that really stick out for me.

Of course we had Russell Crowe play there, so that obviously sticks out.

Click here to read about Brenda’s other big nights!
I know with four operations on the go and with one just a month into its existence that this may seem like a strange question, but do you have any other business ventures on the horizon, or are you just focused on letting these four grow for the next little while?

No, we do have plans. It’s been in the works for the last several years. We were talking about possibly franchising O’Reilly’s – and this is back even before 9/11 – but we pulled back on that plan because the timing wasn’t right and the industry’s been hard-hit lately, with tourism down and the price of gas and all that.

But that plan is absolutely back on my radar and it is my priority to get it done over the next year and a half. We want to take the concept to areas where there are large pockets of Newfoundlanders. We’ve had a lot of requests, with people interested in opening an O’Reilly’s franchise and now we’ve got two things we can bring together, both O’Reilly’s and our Yelllowbelly beers.

Would you be looking at just the Atlantic market for that?

No, actually the first place I would probably look at is out west. We’ve got somebody really interested in Calgary. Obviously Fort McMurray is a place that sticks out because there are so many Newfoundlanders up there. Also southern Ontario, Toronto area. Halifax sticks out. I’d like to do a couple of smaller ones in Newfoundland and I’d really like to do one in Boston, but that’s a bit more challenging because it’s in the States. But not impossible.
Just one last question … who’s your favourite chef?

I am fascinated with chefs. I’m fascinated with food and cooking and learning recipes and I would just love to meet Jamie Oliver. He’s fantastic … he’s my rock star.

I’ve got all his cook books, videos. I’m just absolutely in awe of him and I would love to meet him. It would be my thrill of a lifetime.

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