On a sunny afternoon in October, Corey Evjen sits smiling in a wedge of sunshine inside a dark pub.
Evjen is only 35 years old, and seems to radiate sunshine himself, despite the dark interior where he spends so much of his time — Oliver Street Bar & Grill, the lively local watering hole he owns and operates in downtown Williams Lake.
It is a full circle return for Evjen in many ways, the pub is also where he got a job as a bartender at 19 years old, the only job he could find at the time which he could do with a back brace, after he broke his back snowboarding.
It is also where he initially met his fiance Victoria Savile, when they worked together there.
But while visiting friends in Nelson, he ended up moving away to Fernie for many years, which is where he got introduced to doing earthworks, excavating and filling. Evjen said he made his way up from working the shovel, learning the business from some amazing people along the way. He began contracting to companies on a project by project basis, starting his career as an entrepreneur.
Eventually, he got tired of living out of a suitcase with his work and was looking for a change.
This had him looking towards home. Evjen was born and raised in Williams Lake, graduating from Columneetza. He is the son of Wendy Chevigny and Brian Evjen. He is the eldest of four siblings, Mat Chevigny, Breanne Evjen, and Tévis Chevigny. His dad Brian Evjen had purchased Oliver Street Bar & Grill after Corey had worked there.
Corey said he knew his dad was looking to retire from pub ownership, so he thought it would be a good fit for him to purchase the business and move back to the lakecity.
“This is a great little town, I think there’s a lot of opportunity,” he said of his home territory.
Owning a pub is also a good fit for the social entrepreneur, who had both his father and his stepfather André Chevigny to draw on for their depth of knowledge as business owners themselves.
“Being able to work with people is so important because there’s so many different kinds of people,” he explained.
But the busy job of running a pub and restaurant is not Evjen’s only business, he also is a partner in C&C Contracting, an earthworks contracting company in Williams Lake.
“I still kind of like to play in the dirt,” he quipped, though he had additional reasons for continuing to do earthworks contracting.
While it all worked out in the end, he had purchased the pub in 2019, just before Covid. While initially, he used the shutdown to make some updates to the building, it lasted longer than he’d imagined, and he began doing some contracting to keep busy. Now, he said he believes the slow start to pub ownership helped him get initiated into the business.
“It gave me time to sharpen my pencil,” said Evjen.
With all the demands of these two busy operations, a person might expect Evjen to be stressed or in a hurry, but instead, Evjen seems relaxed and happy, taking time to pose with his dog Billie, who goes everywhere with him.
He credits his amazing staff with keeping things running smoothly.
“I wouldn’t be able to do the things I do without having good people,” said Evjen, humbly, noting his staff and his business partner are as good as it gets.
In his spare time, Evjen enjoys riding horses with his fiancé and his stepdaughter Bella Durfeld, calling them his best friends.
He also snowmobiles and does some backcountry snowboarding, though a series of injuries means he doesn’t do as much snowboarding as he used to.
But for him, the work he does is fun too.
“Generally, I enjoy what I do.”
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