A Playhouse for Foodies

Brick & Mortar Food Co. is a Celebration of Food

While almost every business has had to embrace online sales and curbside pickup, a new business in Thunder Bay is determined to dismantle our turbulent expectations from the past year.

Welcome to Brick & Mortar Food Co., located at 18 St. Paul Street. This is a specialty grocer that is so much more, and could prove to be an antidote to some of the past year’s disappointments. Proprietors Derek Lankinen and Jim Stadey have compiled their love of food and their combined decades of experience in the restaurant industry to bring some of their wildest concepts to fruition. Lankinen started cooking as a teen, and he’s done the upscale thing, trendy fancy restaurants, as well as fast food. He gravitated to the snack and convenience market because of its lasting power. Beefcake’s Burger Factory in Current River is reliable, and a place he has been able to make his own with its eclectic decor and local offerings, but says he also enjoys the opportunity to be creative with food and to try new things. Stadey is also proprietor of Eat Local Pizza, and the new EatLoco Tacos, next to Brick & Mortar.

These guys know the industry, the local market, and the local players. They are passionate about food, and they want to share their foodie excitement with you. Brick & Mortar is both a local grocery shop, and a physical site where Lankinen and Stadey can share their favourite ingredients and kitchen tools with customers.

What they insisted on, says Stadey, is flexibility post-COVID. “What COVID taught us is all about building resiliency. Investing in your own logistics is paramount now.” What this means is creating a platform, and providing a location for collaboration. “It’s not about competition,” with other local food sellers, says Lankinen. Brick & Mortar is a place where other local chefs will be welcome to come and try new things. “Brick & Mortar is the playhouse where we’ll be coming up with kooky concepts.”

This is another area, besides their passion for cooking, where both Stadey and Lankinen have experience to share. “We’ll leverage, say, ridiculous nachos, breakfast for dinner, stuff that wouldn’t really work in the long-term, but to try it for a week will be a lot of fun.”

These experiments will follow some of the things they’ve tried recently, like Stadey’s Uncle Jimbo’s Marvellous Barbecue Steak Emporium. The things they want to try are on a big—and growing— list, and will serve to help others, as well, as new ideas flow into the grocers that share a kitchen with Eat Loco Tacos.

Check out Brick & Mortar Food Co. on Facebook and Instagram @brickandmortarfoodco.