A shoebox closet, a three foot counter, a toy cash register and an IKEA fridge. That’s all Mandy and Rebecca Wolfe had when they started Mandy’s in the back of a clothing store in the Westmount area of Montreal over ten years ago. Today, the salad sisters have five locations across the city with restaurants as packed as their famous salad creations.
Salad was what they could make because they couldn’t prepare any hot food in the back of a clothing store. But that doesn’t mean salads we’re easy. They’re not serving salads as a side dish, it’s the star of the show so every bowl has to be perfect. The lettuce should be bright and crisp. Tomatoes plump and juicy. The second an avocado has a hint of browning it’s not allowed to be served. To do that, Mandy’s prides themselves on twice a day delivery of fresh produce.
Mandy’s has an internationally inspired menu with classic creations from the brain of the namesake Mandy. But everybody is different and has different tastes which is why Mandy’s also offers salad lovers the ability to customize and personalize their salads.
Refrigeration is vital to their operation and doing it at their scale wasn’t easy on their books. That’s where Econolease came in. Mandy’s leased basically every piece of equipment needed, saving them money to allocate elsewhere, like their beautiful decor which was inspired by their travels around the world and classic European eateries.
Although they are rock stars in the Montreal food scene now, they didn’t always start that way. They started with a dream just like every other restauranteur.
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