T
he cafe first opened its doors in September of 2016 and is described as “an
exceptional pie cafe and great idea” by Matt Marchand, CEO of the
Windsor-Essex Regional Chamber of Commerce.
When Ryan first bought the building where the pie cafe is, he had no plans for
personal commercial use — but not long after the deal was closed he found himself
with two empty units. The idea for the cafe came after Ryan saw through research
that the pie cafe concept worked in other areas in North America. After looking
further into the idea, he asked his daughter Olivia if she would be interested in
running it with him. Together they hired a team and the Riverside Pie Cafe was born.
“We started off with an idea and perception and followed through, right through
to design to hiring our bakers and developing our menus and concepts,” said Ryan.
“When you do these it takes a long time just with the education of people. When you
say a pie cafe, they really have no idea what it is, so you have to educate people that
it’s both savory and sweet.”
The Riverside Pie Cafe is a made-from-scratch cafe — meaning no lard or
shortening. The recipes are all flour, all butter; key ingredients from the start.
This was not Ryan’s first time cooking up a new business. After working for
Molson Coors as a sales and marketing representative in Kitchener-Waterloo for six
or seven years, he and his family moved back to Windsor.
“The opportunity was right - we felt it was just coming out of a recession in the
early 90s and the timing was right for some of the concepts we wanted to introduce,”
said Ryan.
He has now been working in the hospitality industry in Windsor-Essex for more
than 25 years, opening six or seven themed restaurants. His first restaurant was
José’s Noodle Factory on Tecumseh Road East in 1992, followed by the Leamington
location. A few years later he sold his shares to his business partners and opened
Howl at the Moon Sports Saloon on Ouellette Avenue in 1995 (now known as the
Bull and Barrel) and later Patrick O. Ryan’s Irish Public House on Pitt Street in 1997.
When Patrick O. Ryan’s closed in 2008, Ryan spent almost two years as the CEO
for Tourism Windsor-Essex Pelee Island, which he followed by becoming Chief
Operating Officer at Walkerville Brewery for almost three years and then as the
director of entrepreneurship and innovation at St. Clair College for close to two and a
half years.
February 2018 - The HUB 21