Moo-ver and shaker

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This article was published 16/10/2022 (1462 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Upscale burger and local craft beer joint Tipsy Cow — home of the fittingly named dad bod burger, which boasts two five-ounce patties topped with bacon mayo, onion and applewood cheddar served on a freshly baked brioche bun — toasted its fifth anniversary a few weeks back.

OK, that may not sound like a major accomplishment in a burg populated by such hallowed dining spots as Rae & Jerry’s Steak House, which celebrated 65 years in business this spring, or Oscar’s Deli, which has been dishing out matzo ball soup and piled-high pastrami sandwiches — on rye, with hot mustard, please and thanks — to Winnipeggers since 1929.

What makes the Tipsy Cow’s most recent birthday noteworthy, mind you, is the fact the space it occupies was the very definition of high turnover before current owner Yang Meng arrived on the scene in the summer of 2017.

Mirlycourtois, Lindy’s on Portage, Manhattan Bistro, La Bamba Café & Lounge… even an old KFC franchise, says Meng, listing off a few of her predecessors at 285 Portage Ave., situated a slapshot east of Canada Life Centre.

“Before us, the landlord said there had been something crazy like five different restaurants in the space of seven years here,” continues Meng, who founded the Tipsy Cow along with her husband-chef Joshua Mesojednik (the two are currently separated) and partner Will Bang, who departed for Calgary a few months in, leaving her as the sole proprietor.

For whatever reason, be it luck, hard work or bovine intervention, the Tipsy Cow appears to have found its footing. Online reviews are overwhelmingly glowing, ranging from “definitely in my all-time top 10” to “soooooooo good,” despite Meng and company having had to contend with a worldwide pandemic for fully half of the eatery’s existence.

“COVID didn’t do us any favours, that’s for sure,” she says, seated at a table for four in the 72-seat main area, steps away from a stretched-out oak bar that wouldn’t look out of place in an episode of Cheers. “But now that hockey season is back (the Jets played their first home game of the 2022-23 NHL season on Friday night), we’re looking forward to seeing lots of regular faces again, as well as looking forward to the next five years and beyond.”

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Meng was born and raised in Qingdao, a city of nine million situated in northeast China, close to the Yellow Sea. She worked as a tour guide there for seven years. She left in 2011 to study hospitality management at a college in Toronto. A cousin living in Winnipeg convinced her to relocate here 12 months later, a move that ended up suiting her perfectly.

“When you think of Canada, you think of friendly people and cold winters, and that’s exactly what I found in Winnipeg,” says Meng, an only child whose parents followed her to Manitoba a few years later. “Toronto reminded me too much of being back home in Qingdao, where everybody is rush, rush, rush, staring at their phones all the time. Here, people take the time to look each other in the eye to say good morning and stuff; it’s so nice.”

Meng met Mesojednik at the Park West Inn, in Charleswood, where they worked side by side on the restaurant side of things 10 years ago. Not long after they started dating, they discussed opening a place of their own one day, a dream that came to fruition in 2015, when they took over an unassuming spot tucked inside a St. Boniface industrial park.

Despite being off the beaten path, the Diner’s Grill, 405 Turenne St., was an out-of-the-box hit, thanks in no small part to Mesojednik’s imaginativeness when it came to ground chuck, Exhibit A being his reuben burger, a quarter-pound behemoth smothered with bacon, cheddar, lettuce, tomato, pickles and, true to its moniker, corned beef, sauerkraut and Swiss cheese.

In May 2017 Meng and Mesojednik were driving down Portage Avenue when he spotted a for-lease sign in the window of a vacant premises on the north side of the street, just past Smith Street. Jot down the phone number, he instructed Meng, commenting, “What a perfect spot for a second restaurant.”

The couple dropped by to take a closer look a short while later, only to learn there were five other parties interested in the property. No worries, they announced, they were confident in their abilities. They invited the building’s owners to the Diner’s Grill for lunch, to witness first-hand what they were all about.

“We felt bad, because the day they came, we were so run off our feet, we barely had time to chat,” Meng says. “I guess it didn’t matter; the next day they let us know Portage (Avenue) was ours, if we wanted it.” (She credits a chef at the Diner’s Grill for coming up with Tipsy Cow as their moniker. “Cow for beef, and tipsy because we were planning to have a liquor licence for the first time,” she says with a chuckle. “Joshua and I looked at each other and right away said, ‘Perfect.’”)

Tipsy Cow’s initial year couldn’t have gone any smoother. In April 2018, eight months after the grand opening, the Jets embarked on an extended playoff run, which caused tens of thousands of hockey fans to gather in downtown Winnipeg every second night, for weeks on end, for whiteout street parties. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t been busy on game day already, but the sold-out soirees took things to a whole new level. Soon, people were packing the place on non-event days and evenings to boot.

Of course, dealing with the fallout from COVID was no picnic, but now that pandemic-related restrictions are fully in the rear-view mirror, Meng and her staff can’t wait to get back to doing what they do best. Even though he is no longer an everyday hands-on cook, Mesojednik remains heavily involved when it comes to the menu.

The cheekily named You’re Bacon Me Crazy burger is his brainchild, as are an assortment of “moo-less” options that include a vegan entry done with a pea, rice and bean patty. “Fatboy chili,” a nod to the city’s plethora of Greek-run burger meccas, is available as a side. So, too, is a house-made honey dill sauce that confuses the heck out of visitors from south of the border unfamiliar with the Winnipeg-centric concoction, Meng says with a laugh. For that one, they use leftover orange rinds meant for Manhattan cocktails to give the flavouring an extra shot of zhoosh.

Meng admits she wasn’t blowing out any candles at the end of August, when her resto’s fifth anniversary rolled around. With so many downtown office workers continuing to punch the clock from home, sales were down significantly this summer. Also, despite stating earlier she is confident about the future, she remains cautious, not necessarily about COVID, but rather ever-rising prices at the cash register.

“Personally, I think restaurants that end up closing in the next 12 months or so will do so because of inflation, not the pandemic,” she says. “We still charge $20 for our game-night special — that’s a burger, fries and a beer — but anybody who goes shopping these days knows it costs close to that much, at least, just to buy the ingredients. Plus, with prices continuing to go up, lots of people don’t have the extra money to eat out any longer; it’s so sad.”

On a sunnier note, she acknowledges her son Raymond, now six, is a big fan of Tipsy Cow’s fare. Every now and again, though, he pleads with his mom to make a pitstop on the way home from school, at “the competition.”

“We’ll be driving past a McDonald’s and he’ll be all, ‘We have to stop, that’s the best restaurant in the world,’” she says, rolling her eyes. “I’ll ask him what’s wrong with my burgers, and he’ll go, ‘Nothing, but McDonald’s is the greatest.’ Who knows? Maybe he’ll change his mind when he’s a bit older. Maybe not.”

david.sanderson@winnipegfreepress.com