Disappeared tables - The ones who left

val mandujano
Feb 12, 2024
4 min read

Each of us has a place we love to go to eat, socialize or hang out. And it is devastating to see the place that fills us with happiness and memories close its doors.

By Val Mandujano,

Jan. 25, 2021

The seats at the bar are full.

There are people watching a football game on the big screens on the walls.

Beside the dark wooden door at the entrance of Pat & Willy’s, there are shelves with cartons of Corona Mexican beer. People keep coming in.

The warm lights of the cantina make the place cozy and the waiters walk to the tables with a plate of sizzling fajitas and beer.

On the walls, the giant lizards and the hanging ponchos star in people pictures at the popular Mexican restaurant downtown.

In a corner, someone with a big sombrero celebrates their birthday.

Everyone talked so loudly and so much that nobody could hear their own voice.

Meanwhile, through the windows facing the mall, shoppers passed by and looked at the people at the bar as if they were witnessing a medieval battle.

It all sounds like a perfect Friday night but the restaurant closed 13 years ago.

Entrance of Pat & Willy's. The restaurant was located inside the Confederation Court Mall in Kent St. (photo by Stephen V., on Yelp.ca)

Pat and Willy’s opened in May of 1991 by Murphy Hospitality Group.

The restaurant was doing well.

It was a new and trendy concept for the city of Charlottetown.

Its popularity started to grow, but later in 2007, the restaurant vibes started to fade away. It was renovated in 2010 with the aim of bringing some light to it, but it didn’t work out.

It closed in 2011.

Sonia Lindstone lives in Charlottetown and enjoyed visiting the Mexican restaurant before it disappeared.

“The ambience was great. It was always filled with customers and friendly staff. The restaurant was always full of customers and was very surprised when I heard it closed,” Lindstone said.

Common problems restaurants experience like shrinking menus, using fewer ingredients and changing dishes had been an issue for years.

In more recent years because of pandemic and food price and living cost increases, the restaurant industry has again been affected negatively in the island.

A 2022 study by Restaurants Canada said that menu prices in Canada would increase by 5.2 per cent for that year.

For 2024, the sales for the businesses are expected to return to a pre-pandemic stable level.

For Pat & Willy’s, the statistics during the decade it was opened, may have affected the restaurant owners’ decision to close.

An article, written in 2010 by a magazine about Canada’s food services and hotel industry called Food Service and Hospitality, talked with Kevin Murphy, owner of the restaurant branch of the Murphy Group.

During those years, Murphy Group was focusing on whether to close or renovate their restaurants.

Murphy explained to the magazine, this was to “figure out how to do more with less.”

During that time, according to a study by Statistics Canada, between 2007 and 2012, food costs rose by 19 per cent.

This is a lot compared to earlier decades.

Before that, the highest food price increase was between 1972 and 1982 with a grow of 10 per cent.

One of the highest increases the country has experienced in the last 20 years was the one of 2007.

Food inflation is one of the main reasons restaurants close, which affects cities like Charlottetown where restaurants are an important part of the landscape.

Another popular place that closed was at the end of University Avenue in Charlottetown.

Opened in 1958, Peter Pan was a hit with the community.

The restaurant was founded by Doug Hill and Bill Beer.

The building had an unusual triangle shape with big, tall windows and a dark green roof.

On the side, there was a large wooden sign with a hand-painted Peter Pan drawing and the restaurant's name.

One of the original ads from Peter Pan. The owners feature in the page along with some popular items of the menu. (Photo from CBC website)

Inside, in the waiting area, there were hanging lights with marbles across the bottom.

You could see the cooks grilling the burger patties and frying onions.

The burgers were wrapped in a napkin and people would walk outside to sit at a picnic table to enjoy their meal and children playing on kid rides that looked like a lone ranger's' horse.

The most popular items were the burger baskets and the milkshakes.

Customers like Kara Gallant would drive from out of town to get their basket-burgers and enjoy a fresh milkshake.

“We would drive to Charlottetown just to get the burgers because my dad loved them so much and he’s a fussy eater and fussy about hamburgers,” Gallant said.

The daughter of one of the restaurant's founders, Rosemary Hill-Miller, remembers the place with nostalgia and knows the food was served with quality during its over 50 years of service.

“When dad was building it, people said to him ‘You’re crazy. No one’s going to drive out of town & eat sitting in their cars.’