After three-and-a-half years of mornings beginning at 8 a.m., turning on deep fryers and preparing donuts for sale, Holly Laham is ready for life’s next adventure.
Holly’s Hot Chicken
, a chicken sandwich shop operating in Hintonburg
since 2022
, is set to close on Aug. 16.
Laham, co-owner with Steve Watt, a friend she met in high school, said the years of “not sustainable” physical labour were part of the decision to close.
“We had conversations with each other about what we wanted to be doing in 10 years’ time, and we just realized that our bodies can’t quite keep up with this line of work,” she said.
Tending to four deep fryers for more than eight hours a day, working in the kitchen’s 40-degree heat and running back and forth between prep stations is “pretty exhausting in itself.”
“The business is very successful at the moment, so it felt weird to make the decision to close, but we only knew that it was best for our physical and mental health,” she added.
Laham said the greatest thing about running the business with Watt and just one other employee, was working with each other. But in the end, But that wasn’t a good enough reason to keep the brick-and-mortar business going.
“I’m excited for the prospect of what’s to come,” Laham continued.
Despite its physical toll, Laham said she loves the fast-paced nature of food service and being with happy customers. She loves it enough to “downsize” Holly’s Hot Chicken instead of closing permanently.
“We are going to continue as pop-ups in the future, so the business isn’t going to be fully gone.”
It’s a full-circle moment for Laham, who originally kick-started Holly’s Hot Chicken “on a bit of a whim” as a pop-up business in 2018, operating out of local restaurants and breweries.
“This is my whole life,” she said, “so it will be quite a change for me to move away from this.”
Laham will transition to an office job beginning in October, after rounding off her summer by attending four weddings and spending a week vacationing in Newfoundland.
“It’s a question mark for me,” Laham said of her long-term future, adding that she hopes to dedicate time to camping and hiking.
“We’ll see how much I like a desk job,” she said. “Maybe I will want to get back into a kitchen.”
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