CARONPORT, Sask. – The Pilgrim Restaurant is more than a truck stop on the highway.
The combined gas bar, gift shop and 168-seat restaurant had its origins in the 64-year-old Briercrest bible college in this Saskatchewan village. While the school still owns the restaurant and its students constitute many of the 60 staff, for the past 17 years the dining room has been managed by Sodexho Marriott Services, an American-French firm connected to a hotel chain.
The Pilgrim, on the Trans-Canada Highway 20 kilometres west of Moose Jaw, Sask.,
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has been open to the public for 46 years. (The 600 school students have their own dining hall.) Since 1989, the Pilgrim has been named one of the country’s top 500 restaurants in the guide Where to Eat in Canada. It has also been recommended by the CAA for the last eight years.
“We get lots of bus tours, seniors and truck drivers,” said manager Bill Keith, who has been with the Pilgrim 18 months and went to high school at Briercrest.
“The highway is our bread and butter.”
He said the Pilgrim’s reputation is based on consistent quality food plus “friendly, legendary service” that serves customers their lunch in 15 minutes or less.
He tries to set a fun tone for diners and uses a team approach to staff.
“It’s not by accident. You have to work on things to set a good atmosphere,” said Keith, a former Regina Rams football player.
Diners are more specific about what they like, saying they are drawn by the inexpensive, large portions and fresh homemade soups and baking.
The luncheon buffet on a recent weekday was $6.99 for a fresh salad bar, two hot entrees (chicken and shepherd’s pie), cold meat sandwiches, two soups (hamburger vegetable or cream of chicken) with buns, biscuits or cornbread, and hot cinnamon bread pudding for dessert.
When asked about the relatively low prices, Keith said: “We try to stay competitive” within what the local market will allow. All-Canadian products are used in the kitchen, with the suppliers based mainly in Regina.
The buffet is popular and saves time when the restaurant is busy, said Keith. But ordering off the menu is as common, especially among local people and regulars.
Keith recently changed the menu, adding 30 new entrees, including pastas, to differentiate between lunch and supper. He tried to eliminate some dishes, but customers wanted their favorites so he ended up enlarging the menu instead.
Ambiance is another of the restaurant’s attractions. There are games on each table to while away the wait.
The restaurant has huge windows for southern and eastern views of the prairie and painted, curtained walls and dividers, accented by for-sale crafts and prints.
The Pilgrim recently started opening Sundays, a move that Keith admits was controversial in a
church-based facility.
He ensures the staff rotation doesn’t harm their church attendance and says the Sunday operation was necessary on a busy highway and to accommodate the people who will soon be stopping at the complex’s new 42-room hotel now under construction.
