A $15,000 gift from the Heart and Crown Irish Pubs will support four second-year students in the Culinary Management and Hotel and Restaurant Operations Management programs at Algonquin College for the next four years.
Shauna Bradley, the CEO of the family-run chain of pubs across Ottawa, is a former student in the College’s hotel management program and currently serves on an advisory committee in the School of Hospitality and Business bartending program.
“It’s a great cause,” Bradley said of the College programs that will benefit from her generosity. She looks back on her time at the College with fond memories and years spent “having a lot of fun” and learning a lot about the business she was born into.
Aside from her history with the College, the inspiration behind the bursary was the labour shortage coming out of the COVID pandemic.
“In our industry a lot of people left, and a lot didn’t come back.
I thought ‘how do we help get people back in’.”— Shauna Bradley, CEO, Heart and Crown Irish Pubs
“We weren’t alone in that,” said Bradley. “In our industry a lot of people left, and a lot didn’t come back. I thought ‘how do we help get people back in’.”
She noted the restaurant and bar business is seeing positive signs of customers returning following more than two years of restrictions, but the pool of qualified employees has been slow to return to pre-pandemic numbers.
One of three siblings working in the family run chain, which now boasts four locations, Bradley says “it takes a certain type of person” to thrive in an industry known for its long hours. But she stresses: “It’s a lot of fun.”
Her father Larry Bradley immigrated from Northern Ireland in the early 1970s. After years in the construction field, he opened his first pub at the site of an old French restaurant in the ByWard Market in 1992, longing to create that neighbourhood feel of a local watering hole where families and friends could gather.
“He always wanted to open a pub,” (Shauna) Bradley said, brimming with pride. “Something that reminded him of home. He took the plunge and made it happen.”
Thirty-odd years on, the family patriarch has stepped aside and handed the reins over to Shauna who started in what she affectionately called the ‘dish pit’ and worked her way up to CEO.
“I was always eager,” she said. “I don’t see myself in any other business. I can’t see myself in a cubicle sitting at a computer. (The business) is good for extroverted people. It’s good for people who don’t like being stuck at a desk. Everyone should work at a restaurant at one point in their life. It builds empathy and street smarts.”
The Heart and Crown Irish Pubs Bursary will be awarded each year to two students in the Culinary Management Program and two students in the Hotel and Restaurant Operations Management Program. The first Heart and Crown Irish Pubs Bursaries will be awarded this fall.