Kemptville nights just got a little louder thanks to the recent opening of a country bar and restaurant.
On Sept. 27, co-owners Erika Juneau, Aaron Juneau and Patrick Akeson cut the ribbon on Goldwyn’s, the newest addition to the downtown core in the fast-growing community. The business on Clothier Street East gives locals a fresh spot to eat and dance close to home.
“We knew that Kemptville needed something,” says Erika Juneau. “Some nightlife, like a little bit of a vibe for anybody who just wants to be out later than nine.”
She describes the restaurant as a “hybrid” of two other Ottawa restaurants the Juneaus also own. Goldwyn’s combines the “country-saloon vibes and live music” of Crazy Horse Stonegrill Steakhouse & Saloon in Kanata with the “cocktails and elevated plates” of Rabbit Hole, a chic restaurant in Centretown with a moody underground floor.
The name Goldwyn’s references a famous local Holstein bull named “Goldwyn” bred near Ottawa and once housed in Kemptville. It continues the Juneaus’ tradition of animal-inspired names.
“It ended up becoming the perfect name,” Juneau says, adding she’s thankful to a friend who suggested the idea.
Juneau didn’t anticipate opening another restaurant after Rabbit Hole and Crazy Horse, but her team was drawn to “prime location.” The new space is fairly small, with around 35 seats on the main floor, a bar, booths along the wall, and a stage converted from a former booth area. Goldwyn’s hosts live bands most weekends.
Juneau says that despite the cost of food, they’re trying to offer reasonably priced drinks and meals for the community.
“We definitely can’t price like we would in the city, so we’ve taken that into consideration when we priced out all of our food and liquor.”
Derrick Tutte has lived in Kemptville for 13 years and has already eaten at Goldwyn’s twice. He says the service stood out to him, but what really brought him back was the food.
“The first time we were there, we had this spinach, beet and date salad with chicken, and it was fantastic,” Tutte says.
A growing community
The local Business Improvement Area (BIA) welcomes the addition and adds more dining and entertainment options are needed as the town continues to grow.
Kemptville is one of the fastest growing communities in Eastern Ontario, according to the Municipality of North Grenville. Statistics Canada’s latest 2021 population census found that North Grenville grew by just more than nine per cent from 2016 to 2021.
“People feel like Kemptville is growing so rapidly that it’s losing that small-town feel,” says Talia Hreljac, executive director of the Downtown Kemptville Business Improvement Area (BIA). “They feel like we’re becoming the next Barrhaven.”
Hreljac says it’s clear the small-town feel is still alive when you walk through the downtown core and see storefronts decorated with pumpkins. She says community members also have welcoming attitudes that make Kemptville phenomenal.
“Come Christmas time, when you’re walking through all these cute stores and see it decorated, you still feel the magic,” Herljac says. “I moved here two years ago, and I was able to build my village so quickly because the people here just want to help you, and they are the first ones to raise a hand to help.”
Still, she says Kemptville lacks the entertainment options found in Ottawa, such as a shopping mall or a cinema. She wishes Kemptville had a community centre that offered dance and other activities for children.
“I think that’s the next step for a growing community,” she says.
Juneau says it wasn’t necessarily the growth of the town that inspired the opening of Goldwyn’s. Instead, she wanted to create a space within walking distance of home. She says most of their customers live down the street and, at the grand opening, visitors told her the restaurant actually “feels like home.”
But Goldwyn’s reach isn’t limited to Kemptville.
“I just talked to a guest who came from Kanata, because they saw our Instagram videos of the space,” she says.
Hreljac says despite having only seven eateries in town, Kemptville has a wide selection of food. She says it often goes unnoticed, and that she’s excited attention has “gone all the way to Carleton.”
That doesn’t mean the town’s new nightlife is free of challenges.
Juneau says transportation is tricky for late-night visitors because Kemptville has no Uber or taxi service. The town’s on-demand transit, called North Grenville Transit, stops running at 10 p.m., which makes it harder for people to get home after a night out.
Juneau says she thinks this will improve as Kemptville grows. She says Goldwyn’s is working with the municipality to explore transportation that would help guests get home safely.
“I know that it’s going to eventually have to get fixed, because the community is growing so fast. The subdivisions that are going up right now are just crazy,” she says.
Hreljac agrees that the lack of transit service to Kemptville is a challenge, but she says there are ways to tackle it. Hreljac adds that the downtown core is mostly frequented by an older demographic, so she hopes to see more young people exploring Kemptville’s downtown and discovering what it has to offer.
“We just need the younger generation, the ‘Instagrammers’, to come and see how beautiful it is,” she says.
Hreljac is confident that after visiting only once, they will fall in love with the downtown core. And the excitement shown by the team at Goldwyn’s will play a part in continuing to build their town.
“They’re happy to be here. They love being part of the community. They already had their kickoff,” Hreljac says. “I think it’s going to bring a lot of life into the downtown core.”
