Calgary pub owner named CRFA chair

TORONTO—Home province of the chair of the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association has moved from the East Coast to the Prairies.

Gerard Curran, owner of the James Joyce Irish Pub in Calgary, took the chair reins at the CRFA’s annual general meeting, held in March during the annual CRFA Show in Toronto.

Curran takes over from outgoing chair Brenda O’Reilly, co-owner of YellowBelly Brewery and Public House in St. John’s, NL.

“The last 18 months have been the most challenging for us,” Curran said, in his first words as chair.

“The banks stopped lending and the customers stopped spending. Times like this force us to become more strategic, innovative and responsive to our customers. Those that stubbornly refuse to change don’t make it.”

In 1997, Curran and his wife Anne opened ‘Alberta’s first authentic Irish pub,’ the James Joyce. The 225-seat bar and restaurant now employs 40 people and is billed as serving ‘the best pint of Guinness in the country’, as the pub is sanctioned by the Guinness brewing company, where Curran worked as a teenager in his native Ireland.

He came to Canada at age 20, working his way up from sales manager to CEO of a major brewery company.

Curran said he plans to build on the framework created by O’Reilly by focusing on the qualities relevant to the CRFA and its members—integrity, passion, competitiveness, and strong leadership.

He said the CRFA has created a ‘members first’ environment to send them down the right path to creating successful and thriving businesses. The organization is also looking to attract new members to the organization.

“We need to get to a point where every restaurant owner is automatically a CRFA member because they can’t afford not to be,” Curran said.

He is also behind the creation of the Calgary Irish Chamber of Commerce, serving as the organization’s president.