Mhairi O’Donnell, the founder and owner of local wine and fondue boutique bars — Moonlight & Eli and Var Bar — is utilizing a different approach to overcome the negative impact construction has had on her small business.
Using TikTok, humor and her authentic self, O’Donnell was able to not only recover from the loss of business, but it has helped her reach audiences and heights she could have never imagined.
Raised in a Central London pub where her mother cooked and her father ran the beer supply, O’Donnell has spent her life in restaurants. Despite growing up in the service industry, she pursued a degree in war history and would later receive her bachelors in fashion.
Unable to find a job in fashion, O’Donnell started a house painting business. Even though she found success within the industry, she knew it wasn’t suited for her in the long term.
“I painted for a few years and then I didn’t want to do that anymore. So I decided I wanted to open a restaurant.” She adds, “Because I missed humans. Painting is very lonely.”
Yearning to flex her extroverted muscle, O’Donnell opened Mission Diner in December of 2010. Looking to build on the success she was having with the Mission Diner, she decided to open a second location in Marda Loop in 2013 called The Loop Eating & Drinking.
The first flood of problems
Then, only weeks after the purchase of the Marda Loop location, the 2013 Calgary flood would devastate the Mission Diner location which was temporarily shut down. O’Donnell, who was now at risk of losing everything she had worked for, found volunteers and began the feat of salvaging what she could from the damaged Mission Diner to re-locate it to the Loop.
In just seven days O’Donnell was able to open The Loop, but it would take her six months to reopen Mission Diner.
While she was able to successfully open both locations after the flood, the insurance money O’Donnell had expected to help counter the costs would never come.
“I declared bankruptcy,” she notes, “which I try to be quite transparent about because people don’t like to talk about money and they sure don’t like to talk about hardships and money.”
However what would initially feel like the end of her restaurant days, would turn into self-motivation to try again and again. Recently, O’Donnell says that the bankruptcy has now completely fallen off her credit.
She adds, “I’m now no longer bankrupt, which is amazing. But this is a tough business, and you really can lose everything. And I lost everything.”
Although O’Donnell fully recovered from bankruptcy, not an easy feat, she now faces further barriers with her businesses resulting in profit losses outside of her control.
Road work woes
In 2016 O’Donnell purchased another location in the neighbourhood of Bridgeland and initially ran it as a grilled cheese restaurant called Grate and Barrel. Not being much of a sandwich fan herself, O’Donnell decided to shut down, renovate and try something new.
A new restaurant concept was conceived out of O’Donnell’s love of fondue, sparkling wine and an old photo of her grandmother labelled “Moonlight & Eli”.
Growing up in the UK, O’Donnell’s family would share a special fondue dinner with her parents every Christmas eve. However, because she never had the chance to meet her grandmother, including grandma’s photo with her favourite family tradition just seemed right.
Moonlight & Eli opened the doors to her intimate and unique dining experience in August of 2019. Feeling relieved that she had a space she could run entirely on her own and was passionate about, O’Donnell’s momentum would be halted once again eight months later by the onslaught of the pandemic.
While complying with AHS guidelines for distancing and screening, O’Donnell’s intimate dining concept left many patrons feeling uneasy.
“When we reopened people would come in for their reservation. Walk in, be like, it’s too small, I’m scared, then leave,” says O’Donnell.
Realizing she needed to be creative in order to keep the business alive, O’Donnell began delivering DIY fondue kits seven days a week and engaged in small partnerships with other local businesses.
After surviving the pandemic, Moonlight & Eli reopened and began to recover some of the in-person patronage they had before COVID. Booking reservations for a full house almost each night and having survived what many other restaurants did not, O’Donnell never expected that construction would be one of her biggest hardships.
Going from 30 bookings a night before road construction began just outside the restaurant’s front door, to one for a whole weekend was a hard blow to O’Donnell and the bar. However, just like every obstacle she had faced before, she was determined to overcome it.
TikTok and the glory of algorithms
While O’Donnell didn’t originally want her personal image attached to her company’s brand, she made an assertive move, opened her camera and took to social media, presenting a humorous and creative approach to overcoming the obstacles construction poised to her small business.
Her initial TikTok post, which has garnered over 100 thousand views to date, she offered bottomless fondue to those that made a reservation during the construction. As a result, Moonlight & Eli went from the threat of having to shut down to weekends with a fully booked house.
O’Donnell has continued to post videos educating people on her business, its story and the importance of a “chambong” experience — a beer bong equivalent with champagne and other sparkling wines.
Her videos have helped her reach audiences she didn’t think initially possible that ranges from younger age demographics making reservations to people from other cities driving in specifically to spend an evening at Moonlight & Eli.
“I like to say I am delusionally optimistic,” says O’Donnell, recounting the ups and downs of her career. “If you don’t laugh, you cry. That’s basically the two emotions that you get when you’re doing something that’s difficult. And I choose that.”