‘It’s the best’: The business of the Moncton Burger Festival

Moncton restaurants are hoping for a busy Burger Week.

Business is pretty good at the oldest tavern in New Brunswick, but like many bars and eateries, things do slow down this time of year.

Chris Rock Tavern owner Jamie Boushel was busy behind the bar on a stormy Monday. He says he’s seen a boost in business lately, thanks in part to the Moncton Burger Festival.

“This is great. Quite often January in the Maritimes isn’t ideal for business. Getting people out, it’s cold, there’s storms like today,” said Boushel.

Chris Rock Tavern is one of 60 establishments in the Greater Moncton area participating in the Moncton Burger Festival.

Burger sales have been very consistent, for both takeout and dine-in.

With inflation, the rising price of groceries, and the possibility of power rates going up, Boushel said it’s not easy running a restaurant in these challenging economic times.

“Incredibly hard. It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of rolling your sleeves up and diving in.”

The annual Moncton Burger Festival was started by Tide & Boar Owner Chad Steeves, who saw similar festivals work well in other cities and wanted to do something for Moncton businesses in the down season.

The father and son owners at the Igloo Beverage Room & Steakhouse said their burger festival creation has been a huge hit.

“As of right now, we are over 2,000 burgers sold,” said Adam Worden. “It’s been a huge success. We’ve seen a lot of faces in.’

His father Tim Worden said it’s amazing what the burger festival does for the volume of sales.

“Volume is where you have to go for. We push hard to get as many butts in the seats as we possibly can. When they’re here, we can sell to them. If they’re not, then we can’t,” said Tim. “We look at the numbers every day and it really is amazing what that festival does for our overall business.”

This year’s festival is a full three-week period and the longer it goes the better it is for business at the Igloo.

“Week two was just as busy as week one and we’re expecting week three to be great as well,” said Adam.

Cheers Beverage Room co-owner Eric Somers said January isn’t necessarily the slowest time of year for them, but they welcome the extra business the burger fest brings.

“We’re averaging about a hundred burgers a day. Out of the gate we were 150 to 200 the first weekend, and yeah, still going strong,” said Somers.

While selling well over 1,600 burgers in a few weeks is great, it’s still hard for Somers and his wife Jennifer to run their business and keep their prices low.

“Costs go up. Labour costs go up. Everything is going up. We consider ourselves a neighbourhood pub where we try to give good value to our customers and that part of it makes it tough for sure,” said Somers.

But it is a lot of fun for the owners, chefs who create the burgers, and servers who collect the extra tip money.

Boushel said he’s seen a lot of burger dates where multiple people come out to give the special a try.

“It’s the best and people are always in a good mood,” said Boushel. “In January, seeing people in a good mood makes me happy. Gets people out for a cold beer and a hot burger. It puts a smile on all of our faces to see people come through the door.”

The Moncton Burger Festival wraps up on Jan. 31.

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