Dale Todorowich comes alive at Chances Signal Point Gaming, calling it his stage — a reference to one of his favourite pastimes, attending theatre shows (though he has no interest in performing himself).
“I love this place,” he said of his now 18 years working there, first as a server and now as the banquet and event manager.
A foodie, he moved back to Williams Lake in 1995, first working at Anita’s Place (now closed), The Old House (also closed), Chef’s Corner (again, closed), then at the Fox’s Den Bar and Grill, The Laughing Loon, Ally Cats Bistro and the Royal Canadian Legion, before coming to Chances.
Todorowich’s family moved to Williams Lake in 1964 when he was four. His father’s job as a welder brought them to the area, and his mother worked as a stay-at-home mom, working “her butt off to make a home for the family,” he said.
“We had a huge garden and all the preserves. It got the family through the year.”
He graduated in 1978 from Columneetza before heading to Fort St. John, where he worked at Sears. After Sears laid him off, he started working at the restaurant next door, where the owner took him under his wing. He began as a breakfast server and, within two weeks, was moved to the dining room where he took over.
Todorowich spent seven years in Fort St. John before moving to Vancouver, almost by accident. One day, after coming home from work in a foul mood, his two roommates jokingly told Todorowich they were moving to Vancouver and if he wanted, he could join. The next day, and very much to his roommates’ surprise, he quit his job and said he was coming. The trio headed to Vancouver in early 1985 and it was five months later when Todorowich realized the original moving to Vancouver comment had been a joke.
Nonetheless, he stayed, spending his next 10 years in Vancouver, where he trained in culinary arts and worked in various restaurants, nightclubs and bars. He loved it there, though he’d never move back, he said, and in 1995 moved back to Williams Lake where he’s been ever since.
“You can hop in your car and in five minutes, be out of town,” he commented of the area.
While working at The Laughing Loon, he received his professional food and beverage services certificate from Tourism Canada. Now at Chances, he described every day as a challenge, with some good and some bad days (“but that’s life,” he said), and as a place he loves.
“This business now isn’t like it used to be. I think of the serving aspect of it as a career. Most people just think of it as a transient position.”
As such, he described his career as a non-stop training process.
“The way you talk to people, the words you use,” these things matter, he said, commenting on how if a server approaches a table of mostly or all women, they should be greeting them as “folks” rather than “guys,” a common but incorrect expression.
Outside of work and attending every performance by the Williams Lake Studio Theatre Society for the last eight years, he’s a homebody. Lately, he spends his evenings researching drink classes. In the summer, he hosted a mixology class with Poppy Home on Second Avenue, teaching people how to make signature drinks in a pitcher. Early next year, the mixology class will be on gin.
He also started a monthly dinner club (or “dinner wars,” as he called it), where his group of friends would head to one of their houses with 13 surprise ingredients, giving the hosts 2.5 hours to make a cocktail, appetizer, main course and dessert for everyone. All 13 ingredients had to be used, along with whatever the hosts had in their pantry. There was always a twist, though.
As an example, one night Todorowich handed the host a carton of eggs. She was excited to use them as a glaze for her pie, until upon cracking one of the eggs, she realized they were all hard-boiled. Of course, she still had to find a way to use the hard-boiled eggs — that is, with the ones she didn’t end up chucking at Todorowich in spite of his prank.
Another night, Todorowich gave the host a gift card to Save-On-Foods, to which they headed to the store to use up the gift card, wasting some of the precious time they had to cook the meal.
“I would have just used the gift card as a chopping thing,” he laughed.
Though the group has since dissolved, he hopes to start something up again, after all, he loves cooking and entertaining, stating he’ll probably be working until he’s 75, or at least as long as he can.
“It’s my life. I love it,” he noted.
“I’m super happy the way that Williams Lake has accepted and supported me.”
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