The Bunker youth ministry renovating space to open new storefront
There’s something exciting brewing at The Bunker in Winkler.
The youth ministry has been hard at work this spring transforming space in the former Central Station part of its building at 545 Industrial Dr. to create its very own deli storefront.
“Going back about a year ago, we had a guy renting space from us making deli meats,” explained executive director Kevin Hildebrand, referring to the MeatZDymkom business operating out of the commercial kitchen the ministry built for its Industrial Eats project a few years ago.
Industrial Eats is The Bunker’s catering arm, overseeing its summer food truck, canteen operations at the Winkler arena, and weekly lunchtime grab-and-go food service.
“We’ve started using his meats in a lot of our sandwiches, and we’ve expanded into doing different feature sandwiches every month,” Hildebrand said, noting they sell that rotating roster of sandwiches Thursdays from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The partnership has worked so well that MeatZDymkom has become part of the Industrial Eats family.
“We’ve taken him on as part of Industrial Eats and so now we can have an Industrial Eats deli,” Hildebrand said.
Hence the renovation project, which will provide more room for both the deli and takeout sales.
“It was getting super crowded in here,” Hildebrand noted of the area adjacent to the kitchen where they were previously selling their food. “So we decided we’ve got that space over there where the dining room is going to be eventually, and it was just storage. Let’s develop it, close it off a little bit so we’ll have a space for coolers with all the deli meats and whatever other stuff we might expand into, like take-home brisket ribs, pulled pork, that kind of stuff.
“We’ve also got a couple of ladies that are going to be doing homemade breads, cinnamon buns, cookies, desserts, all kinds of stuff like that.”
The hope is to have the deli side of things up and running by the end of April.
The future dining room Hildebrand referred to is part of the long term plan for the non-profit to open a sit-down restaurant whose profits will help keep The Bunker sustainable.
They intend to hire marginalized community members who need a more supportive work environment, with flexible work shifts and a culture of mentorship and understanding.
That dream has hit a few financial hurdles in recent years, forcing them to push pause on the idea, for now.
“That is still the end dream, but we’re like $300,000 away from finishing everything up in there,” Hildebrand said. “So we are trying to figure out how we can raise that money. We’re still actively fundraising towards that, so if people want to donate to that project and get us that $300,000 quicker, that would be awesome.”
In the meantime, the new deli will also employ local youth, just as Industrial Eats does with its canteen and food truck teams.
“We’ve got three working here right now, and during the year we had 19 working at the concession booth,” Hildebrand said. “That has just been a super good opportunity to test out our model of taking kids that nobody else wants to hire and see if we can train and develop and teach them what they need to know to succeed.
“These kids don’t feel they fit in the community, they don’t fit in the workplace, but they come here and they’re out in the community and they fit and they love it and they thrive and grow and learn.”
Heading up that program is Natasha Harder, who has seen numerous youth make great strides over the past year.
“A couple of them in particular have definitely shown a lot of improvement from their start until now,” she said, noting several have plans to come with at The Bunker’s food trucks this summer. “They are proof that if you just give them a chance, show them some love, they can make a big difference.”
Harder will be heading up staff management at the deli alongside kitchen manager Nancy Suderman. With this core team helping keep things running smoothly, Industrial Eats is expanding its hours of operations starting April 17.
“We’ll be open Thursdays and Fridays 11:30-1:30 and then Friday evenings and Saturday evenings from 4:30-7:30 for supper,” Suderman said, noting it’ll be takeout food, though once the weather warms up they’ll have picnic tables outside people can come eat at.
You might also soon see another food truck on the road with the Industrial Eats logo on it sometime soon.
“We had someone donate a second food trailer to us, “Hildebrand shared, noting it’ll be ready to hit the streets “as soon as we have the money to finish it.
“We started this whole self-sustainability thing with our first food trailer, and if we hadn’t started that when we did, we would have shut down by now,” he said. “I’ve been here for 20 years and our expenses have only gone up, but very few of our donations have gone up. We have to find ways to keep it all going.
“Any profits that we make out of all this goes back into The Bunker, and then we can do all the programming, the mission trips, everything,” Hildebrand said, thanking everyone who has supported their efforts, either by making a donation or simply buying lunch from them.
“With these kids, we do make a difference, and they need this,” added Suderman, encouraging the community to continue its support “so we can keep helping these kids.”
