Charlee’s charms

There is a photomontage on one wall of Charlee’s Restaurant & Lounge devoted entirely to enduring Elmwood businesses such as the Thirsty Duck Café, Kool Deelites, Bath Fitter and Video Cellar.

Little did Charlee’s owner Charlie Villapando know as he was stringing the black-and-white shots together that his no-nonsense, homestyle diner at 185 Stadacona St. would grow to be a pillar of the working-class community, as well.

It was definitely a struggle for the first year and a half, Villapando admits, seated inside the 160-seat establishment that will toast its 20th anniversary in December. Besides relying largely on friends and family members who were willing to wait on tables for free, he was alone in the kitchen for 15 hours a day, seven days a week.

“I can’t tell you how many times I slept here on four chairs pushed together, simply because it would be 2 a.m. by the time I was done cleaning and whatnot, leaving just a few hours before I had to be back for breakfast,” he continues, casually dressed in jeans, sneakers and a dark cotton hoodie. “Thinking about it now, I probably should have put a cot in my office, except I never wanted to make it too comfortable. Thankfully, more people started to find us, I was finally able to afford staff and here we are, almost 20 years later, with me sleeping much better.”

Villapando, 44, grew up on Burrows Avenue in the North End, where his parents purchased a home after moving to Winnipeg from the Philippines in the late 1970s. His mother’s sister and brother-in-law came here around the same time, and it was his aunt Liala, “a chef’s chef,” who taught his mother, Eufronia, how to cook for him and his younger sister.

“My mom was never much into (cooking) and as soon as I got the hang of it from watching her and my auntie, I was like, ‘OK, you don’t have to cook anymore, I’ve got this,’” he chuckles, guessing he was 13 when he began preparing meals around homework and a part-time job going door to door selling Free Press subscriptions.

Villapando’s mother was employed as an aide at West Park Manor Personal Care Home and at the age of 16, he caught on there, too, initially as a dishwasher and later as a prep cook. He remained there after graduating from St. Boniface Diocesan High School, opting to take a gap year while deciding what path he should take, career-wise.

Basketball may have been his first love but concluding the NBA had little use for a 6-foot-2 centre, he heeded a cousin’s advice by applying to Red River College Polytechnic’s culinary arts program. He enjoyed the two-year course immensely, especially an on-the-job training stint at the Fairmont Winnipeg’s tony Velvet Glove Restaurant.

“There it was all high-end cooking and I learned a ton,” he says, listing Mooshiro Japanese Cuisine and Earls’ original Main Street location near The Forks as restaurants he toiled at, post-college.

In January 2005, Villapando was offered a full-time position at a resort in the Cayman Islands. He was still debating whether to head south or not when, during an evening out with friends at an Osborne Village nightclub, he entered into a conversation with the locale’s manager that kicked off with, “Hey, you’re a chef, right?”

It turned out the fellow was also responsible for a small strip mall on Stadacona Street housing a convenience store and adjacent pool hall that had seen better days. It was his intent to convert the latter site into a restaurant of some sort, and he asked Villapando if he’d be interested.

Although running a restaurant of his own at age 24 wasn’t on his radar, Villapando agreed to pop by later that week to inspect the property. His initial impression? “I looked at him and said, ‘I don’t know, man, this place is pretty rough,’” Villapando recalls, choosing “run-down biker bar” as an apt description of what he found himself staring at.

In the end, he convinced himself the Caymans would always be there, but an opportunity to create something of his own from the ground up might not. He spent the next 11 months renovating — he didn’t even tell his parents what he was up to until that summer, lest they question his sanity — and finally, by the last week of December 2006, he was ready to welcome customers. (As for naming his venture Charlee’s, with a second E, that was simply to differentiate it from existing operations such as Charlie O’s, formerly on Stafford Street, and Charley Biggs, he says.)

Like he mentioned, sales were slow out of the gate, a set of circumstances he chalked up to the previous tenant’s less-than-stellar reputation among neighbourhood residents. He was determined to succeed, however, and cites a menu change more reflective of his culture for helping to turn things around in Year 2.

“Originally, this was a fast-casual spot, more or less, that served old-fashioned comfort food morning, noon and night,” he explains. “Only after studying Greek-run joints that in addition to basics like eggs, burgers and sandwiches, also offered Greek stuff like souvlaki and gyros, I decided to copy that approach with Filipino fare.”

In addition to a Mighty Asian Breakfast (three eggs served with garlic-fried rice, longanisa and Spam) and a Tocino Burger (caramelized pork topped with a fried egg, lettuce, tomato, cucumber and “secret” sauce), Villapando introduced Mama’s Homemade Lumpia to the mix, though the latter was a misnomer, what with it being based on his aunt’s spring-roll recipe.

He was also preparing stewed dishes such as kare kare and caldereta and one afternoon he hit upon the notion of “Canadianizing” them, by creating what he laughingly calls Filipino poutine.

“Instead of pairing the stews with rice, I thought, how great would they taste smothered over cheese and fries?” he says. “So now I was making Filipino food for Filipinos, Filipino food for Canadians and Canadian food for everybody, an approach that clicked.” (As a homage to the Elmwood Giants, the name used since 1905 by district baseball teams, Villapando also unveiled the Elmwood Giant, a two-patty burger that comes with fried mushrooms, Swiss and cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickle, bacon and onion rings.)

Villapando credits a glowing August 2012 write-up in the Free Press by the late food critic Marion Warhaft for “really rocketing us up.” The column, which referenced Charlee’s “more-than-usually interesting menu (and) above-average dishes,” resulted in out-the-door lineups — “the fabulous chicken pot pie soup alone would make Charlee’s worth a visit,” Warhaft enthused — and catering opportunities in all four corners of the city.

Villapando also began assisting nearby schools with their hot-lunch programs, a practice that continues to this day together with annual bursaries he awards to local school-division students who are considering a career in the hospitality biz.

“It’s so rewarding because I remember some of those high school kids coming to Charlee’s with their parents when they were five or six years old,” he says, smiling from ear to ear. “I’ll be like, hey, you used to mess up my windows with your fingerprints. It’s wild how it all comes around.”

And sure, online testimonials raving over Charlee’s “monumentally good breakfasts,” “awesome buffet” and “huuuuge portions” will always be music to Villapando’s ears. Except the endorsements he values most are those from “lolas and titas,” the terms of affection given to Filipina aunts and grandmothers.

“If you’re Filipino, we can’t compete with your mom’s or grandma’s cooking, we don’t even try,” Villapando says, noting he has a few things up his sleeve in terms of marking the restaurant’s 20th anniversary at the end of the year. “The love that goes into those recipes? That’s an actual ingredient emanating from the pores of their skin. So when we host private events here — and believe me, Filipinos celebrate everything, from baptisms to birthdays to bridal showers — and I see people, young and old, cleaning their plates, I know we’re doing something right.”

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca