Pizza, produce and patience: Drayton Valley businesses hold on as wildfire keeps town closed

Drayton Valley business owners are waiting for permission to return to the central Alberta town and re-open their shops and stores, but in the meantime, some are keeping busy trying to serve evacuees and fire crews.

Kevin Young, who owns the Boston Pizza restaurant on the north edge of town, has been preparing dinners for firefighters and other wildfire responders the past three nights. 

Young, who spent 10 years with Brazeau County/Drayton Valley Fire Services before buying his franchise in 2020, said he offered help to people in charge of logistics a week ago.

He met with provincial health inspectors, discarded food ruined by a recent power outage and brought employees back to make hundreds of pizzas and pasta dishes.

Young, his wife Lori, and daughter Jade, delivered the individually packaged meals to the incident command group at 7 p.m. and then firefighters at 9 p.m.

He said the firefighters looked exhausted but smiled and thanked him for the supper.

Though Young has been working at the restaurant in town, he has been told not to return to his home in Drayton Valley. He said he drives past it as he commutes between Boston Pizza and a friend's RV, outside the evacuation zone. 

"There's a reason why we're not allowed back in and we need to respect the people that know what they're doing and trust that," he said.

Curtis Patterson, who has owned the Cobblestone Cafe for 15 years, said he had already closed the cafe for the day when the evacuation order came on May 4.

Now staying with family in Drumheller, Patterson said he has not yet returned to his cafe.

He estimates he has lost as much as $15,000 in revenue and will eventually have to dispose of $5,000 or $6,000 of sliced meat, chicken, fruit and vegetables.

Patterson said he could make an insurance claim for the losses, but his deductible would be about $5,000.

"If it's going to be a few more weeks, we're going to have way more loss of income and we're probably going to have a lot more stuff go bad," he said. 

Delivering produce to evacuees

Chantelle Korzenoski, who owns Valley Fresh Grocer, said she typically fulfils about 50 produce orders a week but that dropped to 10 this week since so many of her customers were away from home.

She said she and her children donated fruits and vegetables this week to people who had not eaten fresh produce in a few days.

Korzenoski, who lives just outside the evacuation zone, said she was worried at first about losing all revenue because of the wildfire but she has since been able to connect with customers and make a plan for next week.

"Because we've reached out on Facebook and kept in contact with people, I think it's going to go quite smoothly," she said.

Next week she plans to deliver orders to the Rocky Rapids Store and Tomahawk Hall — locations attracting lots of evacuees, north of Drayton Valley.