A Tofino Chef and restaurant owner will be featured on this Thursday’s episode of CBC’s Dragon’s Den the CBC announced on Monday.
Lisa Ahier, the owner of SOBO Restaurant, is appearing on the program on November 12 in the hopes of finding a partner to sell a grocery store version of her famed salmon chowder.
“I serve a wild smoked salmon chowder, and it’s such a popular item that people were asking to take home,” Ahier said in an interview with Victoria Buzz.
“My problem is that I can’t produce enough chowder in my restaurant to keep people stocked. If that many people are wanting that chowder in just this little town, I feel that there’s definitely a market all across Canada.”
She says it’s just the latest step in the 18-year journey for SOBO. The restaurant began as an award-winning food truck in 2003, and over time evolved into a large brick-and-mortar location that has operated for 12 years in downtown Tofino.
The menu was personally crafted by Ahier, who trained at the Culinary Institute of America in New York’s Hyde Park.
At age 60, though, Ahier wants to come out from the kitchen and find a business partner to help her make the leap to nationwide distribution.
“It’s a hard industry to be in and COVID’s made it much harder, but I do believe the timing’s right for a high-quality product like this to make its way into people’s homes,” said Ahier.
She auditioned for the program in March, and after production was delayed by the pandemic, was contacted in August to see if she could appear.
Because of the busy summer season, Ahier was unable to fly out in person to the studio, but because Dragon’s Den was already adapting to a COVID-19 reality, they were able to accommodate her with a remote setup.
Ahier says the taping was made somewhat challenging by the socially distant form of communication.
“I had to be super conscious,” she said. “I feel like I made it work. It was surreal, about 20 minutes in a dark room looking into the hole of a camera and seeing nothing else.”
While the show’s audience will have to wait and see how her pitch went over with the Dragons, Ahier says she is prepared to move forward with any business partner who can offer her expertise and support.
“I believe COVID is changing the face of sit-down restaurants,” she said.
“I want to be ready with the next phase of my restaurant, and I want to be able to serve all the people who can’t get here.”
Dragon’s Den airs Thursday nights on CBC at 9 p.m.
