Creating Culinary Experiences Worth Sharing

The Iron Kettle is with Dine in 519 at The Iron Kettle.

1 week ago

It’s been a little while since I’ve given you a rundown of what’s happened and what’s happening. The summer has basically come and gone and just when I started to think I knew what I was doing - boom we get hit with a new update on the course: how to run a business.

On July 15, Jesse from @dinein519 stopped in, unannounced, and not from being solicited from us whatsoever. I had a feeling he’d come by at some point because of the amount of times we were getting tagged in his videos from all of you telling him to stop in.

Jesse - if you don’t follow his page has a very active following of 60k+ where he reviews food businesses in southwestern Ontario.

Let me set the stage.
We have always been closed Mondays and Tuesdays. As a matter of fact, we started the commissary only open half Thursday, Friday, Sat & Sun and added full day Thursday followed by full day Wednesday.

Our part time employees wanted more hours for the summer, so I figured we open on Tuesdays to create more revenue to give them more hours. His visit was the second week we open on Tuesdays (my day off). We were short handed that week, two staff members and a manager were away, so I figured we’d add more variety of croissants to our menu for the week and do a few supremes - they’ve always been popular but between you and I, they are a pain in the b.

I’m a few days away from taking my family to a cottage to meet up with my brothers for a few days and disconnect. He comes in, does the review that claims that our supreme croissant is worth travelling for - and we’ve haven’t stopped making them since. To put into perspective, we had sold 1154 supremes since Nov 2023, and since July 15th, we have sold over 2000 of them.

By coming un announced, it speaks to me that he is genuine in his intentions to help create reviews for worthy businesses, but also isn’t being paid by the place which is giving the review. That is a real influencer. I was off that day - he spent some time with Ginette learning about our story and the week after he stopped by again to meet with me and to see the impact he had done.

The secret is out.
We are always busy, or so we thought. The lineups we saw on Saturdays and Sundays since opening, is now the lineup we see everyday. We’ve resorted to having one of our staff at the door when the lineup gets to crazy, so that we can focus on the customers who are being served to our best of abilities. It doesn’t make the lineup longer, and it actually helps us focus and minimize on mistakes. If you ever come and there is lineup, just know we are very efficient at getting through it. People are coming from 3 hours away for our food. Who are we kidding? This business was built on lineups back during Covid! Those of you who have been with us from the start don’t even bat an eye at these lineups. There has been rain storms, snow storms and everything in between and you’ve always been there. Thank you.

Uh oh.
Not only did we increase in exposure, it also happened at a time where we added a full day of operation, and a few more hours to our Sunday schedule. Our business has seen a huge increase in sales - but with revenue comes costs and production. There hasn’t been a week where we’ve been fully staffed - everyone has had vacation booked! Everyone on the team has come in early, stayed late, come in on there days off etc. Ginette and I, haven’t had a day off since. For the first 3 weeks, I worked 19 hours a day 5 days a week, and 12 hours on my days off. Why? Because you came all this way for us, I’m gonna make sure we have what you came for.

We broke all time records on drinks/croissants/breads made all on the same day - 4 times. That’s more than any Xmas or Easter rush we prepared months for. We now have to get ingredients delivered every day, simply because we can’t stock all that we use at once. We beat the most transactions we’ve ever had 5 times, and the biggest one being 100 transactions more than we ever had done in a day before July 2025.

Food production, we can do no problem. Ingredient Ordering, no problem. What I wasn’t ready for, was that we would have to get our dumpster emptied 3 times in a week where usually it is taken care of once. We upgraded to a new bigger dumpster. There has been tears of joy, tears of fear and tears of pain. Our heads are held high because we got this.

What now?
Of all the stats, challenges and craziness we’ve seen - we never ran out of food. We had to miss some family events, a tigers game and made some sacrifices but that’s nothing new to running our business. That’s a true testament to our team - and how they trust in what Ginette and I stand for. They believe in us to lead them. Not only did our sales increase - but our following on social media went up dramatically, about 1000 more per week since on both Facebook and instagram. We now have over 20,000 followers on Facebook and over 18,000 on instagram. That is wild. Remember - our village has 500 people on a good day.

Despite what everyone is asking, we aren’t opening a second location or expanding - that’s just not our thing. At some point this craziness should die down, but we don’t expect to operate at the level we were at after this dramatic of a change. This is the new normal for us - whatever that means and whatever that brings.

We are fine tuning our processes, perfecting our recipes, we are building our team, and we are selling our food.

With all of you behind us - there is nothing that can stop us. Our team is motivated, and the dream is alive. Our small town is no longer an obstacle - it’s our edge.

Thanks for everything & shoutout to Jesse, you are a real one.

Ben ... See MoreSee Less

The Iron Kettle is at The Iron Kettle.

2 weeks ago

Time to visit the Iron Kettle!!!! This weekend is Comber Fair - stop in for a lemonade & a croissant! ... See MoreSee Less

The Iron Kettle

2 weeks ago

What's our bestseller? Our croissants. It's a 4 day process where we feed our starter on day 1, mix our dough on day 2, sheet and shape on day 3, and we bake and eat on day 4. It's a team effort and all day processs - everyday.

Can you guess how many we've made since we've opened in November of 2023?

Check our story for the answer! ... See MoreSee Less