After a little more than a year of searching and renovations, the Kozy Korner Restaurant is getting ready to reopen in a new location.
Since January, Kozy Korner has been renovating its 1,200 square-foot new home in the Cornwall Plaza. The space was previously occupied by Red Island Baked Potato near the Tim Hortons, said Soubhi Abla, who helps out his father Imad Abla, the restaurant’s owner and cook.
For 11 years, Imad Abla ran the popular Kozy Korner Café, laundromat and convenience store at 35 Prince St. in Charlottetown. He moved to Charlottetown from Ottawa (and Lebanon before that) about 25 years ago. The business remained on Prince Street until the building was sold and the new owner decided to open a licensed restaurant in the space.
Since February 2017, they’ve been looking for a new location. Soubhi Abla said the main reasons it has taken so long is that it’s hard to find a place that is affordable with parking and has good size and favourable competition (as the only Lebanese restaurant in the area). He believes all four of those things exist in the new location.
Renovations, including a new kitchen, counter and a section of wall, as well as new kitchen equipment, cost about $120,000, he said. Once open, the new restaurant will have seating for up to 36 customers.
Imad Alba is looking to hire about eight staff right away, including a couple of cooks and six servers. He added that the cooks have to know how to cook Lebanese food.
“Because it’s not easy,” he said. And, similar to the previous location, the restaurant doesn’t have a liquor license.
The plan is for the restaurant to be open seven days a week, including mornings for breakfast, and serve traditional Lebanese and Canadian food. The menu will also have gluten-free options.
“A lot of the food that we’ve served in the past has been really loved by local Islanders,” Soubhi Abla said. “We’re not offering small portion sizes by any means. We like to go big on our portions. We want people to come in, enjoy their meal and be full – with good-tasting food. That’s what we want.”
The restaurant has also entered in the P.E.I. Burger Love event that begins at the end of March and runs into April.
Asked if he missed running the business while they looked for a new spot, Imad Abla said “100 per cent.”
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