There’s a new crew in town.
Between catering and the COVID-19 pandemic, Kalvin Sherry has found the time to open a restaurant.
Krew Kitchen and Catering opened July 28 at 317 Atherley Rd., in the unit formerly occupied by Square Boy Pizza.
Sherry, Krew’s owner/operator, moved to Orillia almost two years ago and began searching for a suitable spot to set up shop.
“I signed for this place after COVID hit. Some people thought I was crazy, but it gained a lot of attention, which helped push things forward,” he said.
Sherry used to run a restaurant in Brampton and still has one in Niagara Falls.
Catering has been his main focus, but he also “wanted to offer items to the public without them having to order enough food for 20, 30, 40 people.”
The catering side of his business is what inspires his restaurant menu. It will rotate weekly, depending on the ingredients he’s using for catering.
He described his dishes as “traditional food with our own twist.”
“We try to stick to traditional food in a sense, but we try to give it a gastronomical twist,” he said of menu items including Thai-infused chicken noodle soup and Mexican street tacos.
The tacos proved popular when he opened, so those will be a staple of the weekly menus.
Sherry’s culinary passion began when he was eight years old and got a look at the workings of a restaurant owned by a friend’s parents.
“I walked into the kitchen and instantly fell in love,” he said.
That first impression lasted, and he went on to take culinary courses in high school, and then studied it in college, on his way to becoming a chef.
He worked in restaurants in Alberta and Ontario before deciding he wanted to get into “the bigger production” — catering.
“That became my specialty,” he said.
It has paid off. After a drop in business due to the pandemic, it is starting to pick up, and he’s already booking events into 2024.
He’s hoping people show a similar interest in his new Orillia restaurant.
He has hired one cook and expects to bring another one on board soon. He also employs a couple of front-of-house staff for the restaurant, as well as delivery drivers and servers.
“My hope is to employ people who want to have experience on both ends of the industry,” he said of catering and the restaurant.
Krew Kitchen and Catering is open Tuesday to Saturday from 2 to 8 p.m. Eventually, those hours will change to 12 to 8 p.m.
For more information about the business, check out its website or its Instagram and Facebook pages. The restaurant's current menu can be found here.
