When Joe Klassen first started Joey’s Seafood Restaurant – originally Joey’s Only – in 1985, he had a vision of creating a unique fast-casual dining experience around Canadians’ love for homestyle fish and chips. By Tamara Rahoumi
When Joe Klassen first started Joey’s Seafood Restaurant – originally Joey’s Only – in 1985, he had a vision of creating a unique fast-casual dining experience around Canadians’ love for homestyle fish and chips. By 1992, Klassen had nine successful Joey’s restaurants under his belt and was ready to take the business to new heights. With that drive and the help of his business partner, David Mossey, the Joey’s Franchising Group was born.
Over the years, the franchise model proved tremendously successful for Joey’s, with locations popping up around North America. Still, Klassen’s strong business acumen and desire to grow the business further kept him from getting too comfortable and simply riding the wave of success. Rather, he continued looking at the business with a critical eye to see where there was room for improvement or growth, which is exactly how the idea for a new, reimagined dining concept evolved out of Joey’s.
As Klassen put it in an interview featured in Western Restaurant News Magazine: “About eight years ago, we knew we had to change our format a bit. Our whole concept and demographic was getting older, and we knew we needed to appeal to younger customers.”
Making that pivot, the team shifted focus to a smaller eatery, which they called Joey’s Urban. This spot would offer counter service and a menu that included Joey’s signature fish and chips but with other foods brought into the fold as well. Eventually rebranding the concept to strEATS, the new iteration of the classic Joey’s establishment proved to be a hit, particularly with diners between the ages of 18 and 32.
It was about three years after strEATS was started, in 2020, that his son, Michael, decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and get involved in the restaurant business himself. A former defensive lineman for the Ottawa Redblacks, Michael made the decision to retire from his 7-year football career in November 2019. Five months later, in April 2020, he opened the doors to his own strEATS establishment.
While Michael’s foray into his father’s world of restaurant ownership officially kicked off in 2020, he certainly had dabbled in and gotten involved prior to that. In fact, he was particularly involved when it came to reimagining the Joey’s brand for a new generation of diners.
“We wanted to try to evolve and revitalize the brand,” said Michael in an interview with Canadian publication CHAT News Today. “I was involved in my off-seasons, and we came up with the concept of strEATS, which is our play on street food. Most of our items are tacos, poutines, burritos, and we carry fish and chips, but tacos are why people come and see us.”
Under Michael’s leadership, strEATS has continued to lean into its identity of catering to a younger demographic of diners. Whether it’s appealing to sustainable considerations through fully compostable paper products, engaging in community-based initiatives such as the #strEATS4streets food fundraiser or introducing a loyalty program based on NFT blockchain technology, Michael has helped shape a new era of Joey’s – one that translates the success of restaurants past to a new market. Alas, it looks like it’s true what they say: like father, like son.
Tamara Rahoumi