It’s been a decade of highs and lows for Three Trees in Lloydminster and owner Jim Spenrath took a trip down memory lane with the Rotary Club of Lloydminster.
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The Nov. 17 lunch meeting was a chance for Spenrath to look back at where he and the business have been.
First opening in 2015, what was then Rock Creek Tap and Grill, was a new player in Lloydminster’s restaurant scene.
“We’ve been in business 10 years. We celebrated our 10th anniversary last month and that’s been very exciting for us,” he said.
Spenrath was well-versed in running businesses. The chartered professional accountant by trade had managed his own practice for 17 years before stepping into a VP of finance position with Foremost Universal, eventually becoming Grid Industries chief operating officer.
He stayed as a franchisee with Rock Creek for four years before taking the leap under his own name, Three Trees, in January 2019.
“I was probably better at business than I was being a franchisee,” he said, noting under a franchise they want you to follow their rules and practices. “I spent half my adult life helping businesses and then I couldn’t do much for my own.”
Over the years, Spenrath has seen ups and downs in Lloydminster, notably working through the COVID-19 pandemic. It was during this time they built a patio for the business and reviewed their practices.
“I looked at our revenues and I went, ‘We can’t be open Sunday and Monday, those are our two slowest days,’ ” he said. “When we re-emerged after closing, we said, let’s go five days a week.
“To my great joy, our Sunday/Monday people just started coming Tuesday and Wednesday.”
He points to the five-day schedule as a benefit for his staff, helping him with retention.
“What it does for us is it gives us the time to regroup and stabilizes our staff,” Spenrath said, noting they’ve had the same chef for 10 years. “She’s happy to be there, the management staff, everybody’s happy, gives them some family time.”
Another aspect of the restaurant that changed during the pandemic was the wide-open concept.
“When we put the dividers up, we made them on a more permanent basis to put dividers between those, give people a little more privacy,” he said.
A small barrier is also still in place at the bar.
He says the restaurant has hosted weddings on the patio, being able to accommodate smaller weddings.
“We can’t accommodate a 200-person wedding, but we can certainly do some smaller ones,” said Spenrath.
He also spoke to the importance of the work they do in fundraising.
“A lot of groups depend on what we do,” Spenrath explained. “We do a thing in February called Soup It Forward.
“What we do in February is, every bowl of soup consumed in our restaurant during that month, we donate a can of soup to the food bank. It’s always a truckload; I think last year it was 6,400 cans of soup.”
He realized while donating the cans how much of a need there is at these non-profits.
“So, a little shoutout to the community for all these groups, the interval homes of the world, the food bank and The Olive Tree, they feed a lot of people and they need all the help they can get,” said Spenrath.
An item on their menu which directly supports the community is the community burger.
“Something I’m proud of, we have a thing called the community burger,” he said, noting the current recipient of burger funding is the Lori Craven Memorial baseball tournament. “Every time someone orders one of those, we track it. On our menu, we have a little blurb about who the beneficiary is going to be of the proceeds for our community burger.”
The pandemic also presented a challenge for events as they could no longer host their full-scale engagements.
“We also saw an issue with a lot of groups in terms of being able to retain traction going forward with their events,” said Spenrath. “One of the ones we had a whole bunch of fun with was the Kinsmen Telemiracle statement. It couldn’t hold their big event that they’d had for years and years.”
He explained during the pandemic they weren’t able to host the event where they normally do and instead did the event from Three Trees.
Three Trees also played host to a Mrs. Roper’s Romp dinner ahead of a fundraiser supporting Bea Fisher.
“It was just a sea of orange hair, and I understand they made something in the neighbourhood of $30,000 this year,” he recalled.
Spenrath says they hope to continue supporting local initiatives.
“We do like to help the hungry, whether it’s bike for breakfast or whatever, we like to be involved with things that actually help kids,” he said.
They also help the Vic Juba Community Theatre, offering volunteers a discount at the restaurant.
“Vic Juba Theatre, for example, is a good thing in our community. We help them a lot, we do things for them regularly,” said Spenrath.
Local events are something Spenrath commented on as the Christmas Craft Fair just rolled through town.
“The craft show is our biggest weekend of the year, always has been,” he said. “This weekend was the craft show, and by all accounts, it was a good one. In our business, once again, it was our biggest weekend of the year.
“On Saturday (Nov. 15), that was our biggest day since April 2016.”
He also spoke briefly about the importance of seeing big events in Lloydminster, explaining when centres like the Cenovus Energy Hub are busy, they’re busier at the restaurant.
While Three Trees has worked through issues such as supply chain problems, they’re currently working through more uncertainty with
tariffs.
“So, now, a lot of it’s just the world uncertainty,” he said. “The tariffs haven’t drastically impacted us, but it’s not over.”
Reflecting back, Spenrath was appreciative of his time at the restaurant.
“It’s been a challenging 10 years, but it’s been the most fun 10 years of my life,” he said.
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