Windsor, N.S. restaurant desperate for hires to keep business going

When Scott Geddes dreamed of expanding his successful restaurant and catering business, Cocoa Pesto, to a bigger location, he had no idea that the most trying times of his career were about to start.

After having to close his business temporarily in March of 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, he was ready to reopen in his new location in May 2022 with a vengeance.

Operating since 1997, the business originally opened in Toronto and eventually moved to Halifax, where it operated until 2008, and since 2016 has been located in Windsor, N.S.

Geddes’s plan has not yet come to fruition. In order to operate at full capacity, Geddes says he needs a minimum of 22 staff members. Currently, he only has five employees.

“For every dollar in sales we do, we are losing in revenue that we simply can’t do because we don’t have the staff,” says Geddes.

The current location is 4,500 square feet. Geddes says in addition to expanding his catering business and restaurant, he also intends to build a food shop. However, 1,500 feet of the space is undeveloped.

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“We’ve rebuilt our space to accommodate more catering and more efficient space for our staff and they’re simply not there,” he said.

Despite his recruitment efforts and hiring signs placed by the roadside, which are passed by hundreds of cars daily, Geddes says he has yet to receive a single resume since he reopened in May.

“We knew there were going to be challenges. I mean, we don’t have our heads in the sand but we never anticipated the difficulties that we’re experiencing.”

Geddes says the initial plan of operation in the bigger space was Monday to Friday, 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., in addition to serving brunch on the weekends, and a Saturday and Sunday evening dinner service.

“We are currently only able to open four to five nights a week from 5 to 9 p.m. That way, we’re able to do our weekend catering.

“We do a lot of catering as well as the restaurant for weddings and corporate events and so forth, but if we have a large event or even two events happening, we close the restaurant because we simply do not have the staff.”

In an effort to make his kitchens more comfortable for his staff, Geddes has climatized his space and has also doubled his kitchen equipment — equipment that hasn’t yet had the opportunity to be used.

That is something Geddes hopes to see change quickly. Otherwise, he says the future of his business is “grim.”

Geddes says the first issue he’s looking to tackle is to rebuild his back-of-house staff. He is looking to hire a full-time cook with experience.

“Once that happens, of course, we’ll be able to be open more hours and hire front-of-house people. You know, we’d love to do it both at the same time, but right now, you can’t have one without the other,” he said, adding that all of his staff are paid above minimum wage.

“I don’t have a single person making minimum wage at this moment in my business…. Right now, anybody who works here past their 90-day probation, no matter what their position, will make $15 an hour minimum.”

In 2019, the last full year of service, Geddes says his business served more than 115,000.