Brockville picnic box initiative promotes local eateries, city green spaces

Brockville invites business to a picnic Program showcases local restaurants, selling food to take on a picnic. CTV’s Nate Vandermeer reports.

BROCKVILLE — A new initiative by the city of Brockville is aiming to support local restaurants, and get people out to green spaces throughout the city to enjoy a dinner date for two.

Nine local restaurants from all across the city are taking part in the 'picnic box program', offering menus ranging from pizza to paninis.

"It's a nice way for tourists as well as locals to support local restaurant industry as well as visiting our beautiful scenic waterfront that we have here in Brockvile," said Kendra Lorimer, economic development coordinator for the city of Brockville

She noted that the restaurant industry was one of the hardest hit due to the pandemic.

"We were looking at some of the COVID regulations and trying to figure out what would be the best way that we could support them," Lorimer said.

On King Street, Rachael Orr of O'Mally Kourt Fudgery is taking part in the program and hopes it will drum up some new business.

"Everyone has spectacular menus and I really think it's going to add to our downtown," Orr said.

Her picnic box offers two different options: Four jumbo hot dogs or two paninis, gourmet popcorn, butter tarts or fresh made fudge, two drinks and kettle chips for $30.

"I like to think of it as more of a little romantic getaway down at the park with your little picnic basket and a little blanky and go from there," Orr added.

"We've got Indian, fish and chips, we've got a local British tea room, soup and sandwiches, really across the board it's going to be something that is going to work for you and your price point," said Lorimer.

Boxes range from $25 to $55 and each one includes a free gift from the city of Brockville.

And the boxes are only available for a limited time.

"We're going to run it until we run out of kits," said Lorimer. "So each restaurant at the moment has 40 kits to sell so we're going to see how it does."

When the city reached out to restaurants back in May, they were excited to jump on board.

"We had a lot of responses right away from our initial post," added Lorimer. "We already have a couple people that have since expressed some interest so if we run it again we will have a different list of restaurants to support."

"Anything to kind of make it easier for people to come and get our paninis, get our hot dogs. We also have local delivery for a lot of our items so as long as you give us a call we can certainly work through whatever we can do to help you get here," said Orr, who also added the boxes make great gift ideas.

"Honestly, even a gift for a neighbour, anything. You might think it's just a $30 basket, you know what, those baskets add up and they certainly help show us support and help show other restaurants support that you're there for us and that we can keep going and keep striving and I just think they are a great idea," said Orr.

"Even though things are opening, we don't know, changes could happen at any moment," said Lorimer. "We're looking at what helps restaurants now so it does support that take-out option, makes it nice and safe, you pre-order your meal and it also brings guaranteed dollars into those restaurants."

"We have such a beautiful waterfront here that we think is really undervalued, so really encourage people to support the restaurants and come out and see what we've got here," she added.

A full list of participating restaurants and menu options can be found on the city of Brockville website.