Melanie Robinson was ready to wear the badge and walk the beat.
Since she was 15, she knew she wanted to become a police officer. She prepared by earning a black belt in karate and becoming a big sister with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Orillia and District.
Then she experienced Kelowna, and everything changed.
Robinson and her husband honeymooned in the British Columbia city in 2007. It changed her life in more ways than she could have imagined.
“Eating the food out there was eye opening,” Robinson recalled. “Everything was fresh, local, sustainable. I just fell in love. I looked at my husband and said, ‘I need to learn to cook like this.’”
In 2010, at age 30, she enrolled in the two-year culinary management course at Georgian College in Barrie, and her passion has been percolating ever since — even when she worked as a dishwasher at Era 67 in Orillia. After the food was cooked and served, she would taste what was left in the pan.
“I would taste anything,” she said. “It grows the palate.”
While at the restaurant, she was able to learn from then-chef and owner Ian Thompson.
“He understood what I was trying to do and what I was trying to achieve,” Robinson said.
She found that same empathy elsewhere during her culinary adventures in the area, working alongside respected chefs at Orillia’s Best Western Mariposa Inn and Oro-Medonte’s Horseshoe Resort.
It didn’t take long for Robinson, of Sebright, to make her mark on the local culinary scene. She was named junior president of the Muskoka and District Chefs’ Association in 2010. She held that position until 2012, when she applied for a stage — an unpaid internship — in Kelowna. She had to write an essay. Naturally, it focused on her transformative experience there five years earlier.
She was chosen for the internship, and as she was cooking in some of the same restaurants she visited during her honeymoon, she thought, “This was meant to be.”
The lady is a champ
If that wasn’t enough proof, she was further validated when she survived the chopping block while under the intense spotlight in the Food Network’s studio.
While she was working at Horseshoe Resort, she appeared on Chopped Canada — a cooking competition whose entertainment value comes in the form of unrealistic challenges for the chefs, who have a limited amount of time to make something cohesive out of mystery ingredients that can be anything but.
“I went into it wanting to have fun and maybe make some money,” Robinson said.
Mission accomplished. She survived the appetizer round, then the entrée round, then the dessert round. And then she won the show — and $10,000.
“It really helped me learn to be focused but at the same time not take myself so damned seriously,” she said.
Change of plans
With a big cheque, Robinson sought balance. She wanted to start her own business. But timing is everything.
Three weeks after the taping of that Chopped Canada episode, she found out she was pregnant. By the time the episode aired, she was almost nine months along.
“I was out of the light for about 10 months, so I lost the momentum,” she said.
The windfall from the show didn’t last long, nor did it go toward her entrepreneurial aspirations. Babies aren’t cheap, after all.
After she gave birth to her second child in 2016, she decided to get back to work. The next year, she started catering and set up a booth at the Orillia Fairgrounds Farmers’ Market. The sense of community was palpable, and palatable.
Robinson found herself inspired by the generosity and enthusiasm of local residents and entrepreneurs, including Lorne and Mary VanSinclair, who own Carousel Collectables.
The VanSinclairs became regular customers at Robinson’s farmers’ market booth. They put a café in their vintage shop on Mississaga Street, but it was a lot of work for the busy couple. So, they asked Robinson if she was interested in moving in.
In November 2017, she accepted the offer. On Dec.20, Eclectic Café opened for business.
It hasn’t been a picture-perfect start, though that can be expected when one opens a business right before Christmas. It has, however, been inspiring. Believing in Robinson’s vision, her staff volunteered their services for the first few weeks. Now they are getting paid, but their boss hasn’t cut herself a cheque yet.
“We’ll get there,” she said. “For anyone who starts a business, their blood, sweat and tears go into it. People tend to start big and then tank. I’m starting small. I’m the little café that could.”
The café offers soup, salad, sandwiches, sweet treats and rotating specials. Her dishes are “globally inspired” and include local ingredients whenever possible.
“Local used to be a trend. Now it’s the norm,” she said, happily.
Common ground
While she is relishing the opportunity to do what she loves, she wants to do more — for the community. To do so, she is asking for the community’s help. She has started an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign, setting her goal at $10,000 to $15,000. As of Saturday night, nearly $2,000 had been raised. The campaign runs for another two weeks. There are incentives for those who donate certain amounts, including free coffee or lunch at Eclectic Café, a private dinner prepared by Robinson, and a seat at the Common Ground dinner table.
Common Ground is a dinner series Robinson is organizing. The first one is scheduled to take place June 30 in the alley beside Carousel Collectables. It will include local food, local chefs, local musicians and other artists, and a portion of the sales will go toward local food security initiatives.
“It’s a big thing right now,” Robinson said of efforts to ensure food security. “Every human being has the right to food.”
She wants to partner with the Orillia Youth Centre, helping those who are interested in a culinary career.
Another area of focus for Robinson is empowering women.
“I would like to help local women who maybe had a bad situation and are trying to enter the workforce,” she said.
For the Common Ground dinner series, she will make sure local women — artists and chefs alike — are involved.
“It’s important because women in business are, in their own right, their own community,” she said. “It has nothing to do with women being better than men; it’s just been a man’s world for so long.”
That goes for the restaurant industry, too, “which is ironic,” Robinson remarked, “because who did most of the cooking in your household?”
To learn more about Robinson, Eclectic Café and how to help her help herself and others, check out her Indiegogo page here.
