Residents enjoy taste of normalcy in Battersea

John Curran | Sep 23, 2020

Seven months into the global pandemic and folks around South Frontenac are savouring every small return to freedom the ongoing public health crisis safely allows.

That’s been good news for Jeff Day and  Core Lee, who operate the Holiday Country Manor in Battersea. The Loughborough lakefront resort was hit hard in March when everything locked down.

“We typically rely on guests from Toronto, Montreal as well as Europeans and people from the U.S.,” said Day. “Our bedrooms have been closed since March, so we’ve definitely been impacted.”

With a patio attached to the stately 1840s stone house-turned resort, the business has been able to reopen on a limited basis in recent months as restrictions have eased. There are still no guests allowed in the resort and the dining room remains closed, but outside diners are clustered in socially distanced pods and a steady stream of orders is pouring in over the phone for delivery and takeout from Jeff’s Patio.

“When the weather is nice, people are coming out and enjoying the patio but if there’s any sign of rain they’re staying home, it’s extremely weather dependent,” added Day. “We’re doing a lot of takeout, it’s still not a regular dinner service, but at this point it’s September so we’re running into our shoulder season and we’re happy our takeout demand is still really steady… before this we’d never even tried doing takeout service.”

Making the trip across the Round Lake Road to Battersea for an evening out at Jeff’s were Perth Road residents Gerald van Wyngaarden, his sister Wilma van Wyngaarden and their tenant Ingrid Uebbing.

“It’s cool to have something like this available in the area to come to and enjoy dinner out without having to go into Kingston,” said Gerald. “Core Lee is great in the kitchen – everything he cooks up is amazing – and Jeff is really good at running the front of house.”

Last week Jeff’s Patio was featuring an Asian theme in addition to its regular menu. Diners could choose from sweet and sour pork with fried rice, lemon chicken with fried rice, barbecue pork with shanghai noodles, or handmade pork and cabbage eggrolls.

“People really seem to enjoy our special themes that Core’s been cooking,” said Day. “We’ve also had Greek, Italian and Caribbean theme weeks… every week it’s different, which is nice for people who have been ordering a lot.”

For the record, Wilma and Ingrid each said they prefer the lemon chicken while Gerald is a big fan of the barbecue pork and noodles.

As for what brought the trio out on a Thursday evening, Uebbing was clear she made the call.

“I’ll take the blame for that tonight. I worked hard all day in the garden and doing other chores and didn’t feel like cooking,” she said. “It’s nice to get out and feel like it’s a little closer to back to normal.”

Wilma agreed and said the three have been frequenting Jeff’s Patio since it reopened a couple of months ago.

Day said they are happy to be facing 2020 in Battersea rather than some big urban centre.

“We took over the Holiday Country Manor four and a half years ago and started fixing it up when we moved here from Toronto,” he explained, adding it was a homecoming of sorts for him having grown up not far away in Westport.

“I’ve talked to a lot of people we know who still live in and around Toronto and I can’t imagine going through this there.”

The fall may yet bring a wider reopening of the Manor, but for now the biggest thing set on their forward-looking radar is Thanksgiving.

“We’ve traditionally done a huge Thanksgiving buffet and it has always been a big draw with families of 25 and 30 people showing up – unfortunately that’s out for this year,” said Day. “We will still be doing a traditional turkey dinner and we’ll have plated service here on the patio or meals available for takeout. We may also do something else in a family-style package, but people will need to check the menu to see on that last one.”

The menu is updated weekly on the Manor’s website, www.holidaycountrymanor. com. There you will also find updates on the resort’s reopening status going forward.