Three sisters combine a passion for whole foods with family life and add a bright new option to the local dining scene

When you sit down at a restaurant, you rarely think about how far your dinner may have traveled. From Atlantic fish to West Coast produce, the distance disconnects us from food sources. Yet, Fresh Café owners, and sisters, Cassandra, Katrina and Becky Watson are countering that out-sourced approach with their locally-inspired breakfast and lunch offerings. They are also showing that a passion for food and family can translate into something delightfully tangible.

Raised on moose meat and produce from their mother’s garden, the sisters’ passion for life-giving foods started early. This inspiration trickled in when Cassandra, who was running a restaurant in Calgary, decided it was time to introduce a better lifestyle to Winnipeg diners.

“I was really inspired to open a place where there were great breakfast choices, but also where a vegan could come and eat comfortably,” she explains. “We loved to cook things that were healthy and tasty and we wanted to share that.”

So the sisters, who all had previous experience in food service, opened their better-for-you breakfast and lunch establishment in May 2007. A key element to Fresh Café’s menu is the Manitoban-sourced foods. From free-range Vita eggs to Tall Grass Prairie Bakery breads, their mantra of healthy, whole, life-giving foods is apparent in every dish and glass of fresh-squeezed juice.

“People have become detached from food,” says Becky. “We want people to become more attached and understand how we make the food. We want them to know there are no preservatives, no surprises.”

“In a perfect world, everything would be 100 per cent organic and grown right here, but that’s not possible,” adds Cassandra. “But we really know our farmers well. We really like knowing where the food comes from.”

Customers can rest assured that nothing gets added to or taken away from that natural goodness when it enters Fresh Cafe’s kitchen. Everything from the hemp seed muesli to the bison and turkey sausages are house made. The sisters know when it comes to preparing food for their customers, quality is key, even if it means hours, or in some cases, days, to create.

“We picked strawberries all through July and made our jam for the year,” says Cassandra. “I didn’t want to add too much sugar so I froze it. Our food preparation is definitely intense, but it’s a labour of love.”

They also employ a sustainable method when it comes to food prep. Much like their father did with their moose meat, chefs at Fresh Café utilize every part of the turkey and bison—from the roast for sandwiches, to the bones for soup. This is all part of the sisters’ effort to leave a minimal footprint on their environment.

“We were very aware of the waste that restaurants produce,” states Cassandra. “So we use things like loose coffee, tea and sugar so there are not little paper packets going into the garbage all the time.”

They also make a considerable effort to compost food waste from both the Corydon location and the café they took over at Seven Oaks Hospital’s Wellness Institute this January, which usually means driving out almost every week to a local worm farm.
“We hope our customers see our efforts and that it encourages them to do the same,” explains Becky.

Customers are also encouraged to participate in morning yoga classes outside on the patio during the summer months—call it Fresh Cafe’s effort to feed the body and spirit. All three women take pride in playing a positive role in their customer’s lives and in the community. And the community, in turn, is rooting for them to succeed.
“We hadn’t even opened and we had people stopping by saying ‘you can do it,’” says Katrina. “They stuck with us to see us succeed.”

The women have seemed to find a recipe for success that goes beyond great food and customer care. So what’s the secret ingredient?

“You have to be brave, believe in what you’re doing and be passionate. You only have one life, so why not try it? What’s the worst that can happen? We’d just have to sell the business and move back in with our parents,” jokes Cassandra.

The women all play varying, yet supportive, roles in the restaurant. Becky is the face of Fresh Café, serving customers and romancing the food. “How could you not order the special from her?” laughs Cassandra. Katrina is the menu designer, specifically the juice and smoothie connoisseur, while Cassandra is the jack-of-all-trades, sourcing the food, spending time in the kitchen and keeping up with the office work.

“We all stick to what we stick to, and trust each other’s decisions,” says Becky. “There’s no score, and we’re not competitive with each other.”

“Women need to empower each other, we don’t believe in competitiveness,” adds Cassandra. “We couldn’t get any tighter. I’m grateful to have sisters and there’s no
one else I could do this with.”

The girls are also very supportive of each other outside of the business, especially when it comes to Katrina’s three year-old son Stellan. Balancing family life and work is a challenge many can sympathize with, which Katrina has overcome by blending the two. Some days Stellan can be found quietly playing, or organizing the toy box upstairs that’s available to other kids that come to the restaurant. He’s such a fixture that he even has a smoothie named after him.

For the other two sisters, life is Fresh Café, but that’s the way they want it to be.
“There’s really no balance. This is your life,” admits Cassandra. “But when we’re exhausted, or have just had a bad day my mom will ask ‘Do you want to be doing something else?’ and the answer is ‘No’. We just tell each other to dig deep, and remember that we’re so grateful to being doing this.”