HALLS HARBOUR, N.S. — The Halls Harbour Lobster Pound & Restaurant is relying on the local customer base to help the newly renovated business navigate uncharted waters this season.
As a popular tourism destination lining the Bay of Fundy in rural Kings County, the picturesque setting and offering of a fine feed of seafood draws guests from all corners of the globe during the summer season. The business has been shaped around the promise of many filled-to-capacity summer days.
“As people wanted more we just kept expanding and adding more,” said co-owner Sharla Cameron.
The latest round of expansions focused on enhancing the gift shop, adding to the ice cream offerings, and expanding the seating areas.
“That was necessary because we were getting so many bus tours,” said Cameron.
The lower part of the dining area was extensively renovated, and a new upper level is slated to open this summer. The second level has an expansive deck and large garage doors that open to give guests the feeling of an outdoor dining experience overlooking the harbour.
The costly renovations are wrapping up during a season unlike any other. Record books that typically tell them how to staff a certain week, when to expect boosts and how to plan for bus tours won’t be of much use this year.
“I feel like it’s my first day with a new restaurant,” said Cameron.
Bus tours were a big part of the rationale for expanding to offer more seating. They wanted to ensure locals could still drop in for a bite to eat when the tourism-related boosts packed the place.
“We’re a huge tourist destination but it’s also locals bringing their out-of-town guests,” said Cameron.
Before COVID-19 forced the tour bus industry to slam on the brakes, the restaurant already had 30-some visits penciled in for this summer. They’ve since been cancelled.
Cameron admits that it’s a lot to process as the stressful renovation period creeps closer to coming to a close.
“It’s a situation of major bills coming and not much revenue coming in,” she said.
But she remains optimistic that patrons will appreciate their efforts to offer a nice place to dine along the Bay of Fundy shore.
“In the future we’re going to have a beautiful place that we’re happy with, and proud of, and that’s very nice for locals and visitors to come to,” said Cameron.
“This is just a blip to get through.”
She hopes to see Nova Scotians include a visit to the new and improved Lobster Pound in their staycation plans as the restaurant braces for the impacts of COVID-19 on the province’s tourism season.
“We’re hoping we’re the new kids on the block with the new renovation,” said Cameron. “It’s pretty outstanding.”
Cameron and her husband, Rodger Cameron, started the adjacent Cameron Seafoods export company at the Lobster Pound site in Halls Harbour nearly 30 years ago.
The lobster industry in Nova Scotia has been hard hit by inventory backlogs and price fluctuations caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic.
“One of our biggest, if not the biggest market for us, is China and I believe it was Jan. 27 that it really, really basically just shut down exports from Nova Scotia on the live lobster market,” said Rodger. “We were sending a lot of lobsters there.”
The prices of lobsters dropped as demand for the shellfish that is considered a luxury item under normal market conditions plummeted. Cameron Seafoods, however, still had the costs of storing live lobsters without the sales coming in to make up for the expenses.
Cameron estimates the operation in Halls Harbour lost 150,000 pounds of sales at a time when fishers were initially getting around $10 a pound for lobster.
The industry, like many others, had to pivot and focus on adjusting the prices as necessary to be able to move volumes of fresh product during the pandemic.
“Everybody sold it for whatever they could sell it for,” said Cameron. “It was the absolute poster child for damage control.”
The Kings County-based international lobster exporter deals with fishers from throughout Canada’s Atlantic provinces. Under normal circumstances, it staffs 15 to 18 full-time employees but in early February this number was temporarily shaved down to five or six.
“It went from full gas pedal down to the floor, to the brakes on with both feet,” said Cameron.
The focus leading into summer, he said, is on repairing the damaged market, limiting losses, quality control, and getting back to some semblance of normal conditions moving forward.
“In one day, this business is so fluid that it impacted everything that we do.”
