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Tag: entrepreneur

Grab a ferry, head to Buzzy’s

Grab a ferry, head to Buzzy’s

The Hungry Jew, one of the signature sandwiches at Buzzy’s Luncheonette. (photo by Adam Bogoch)

My friend, Adam Bogoch, pitched it as the “Smoked Meat Story.” Soon after that email, he would write his own review, for narcity.com, titled, “This smoked meat sandwich on Salt Spring Island in B.C. will actually change your life.” His friend and colleague, Howard Busgang, had opened a deli on the island, and not only did I need to meet Busgang, but I needed to get on a ferry and taste The Hungry Jew, one of the signature sandwiches at Buzzy’s Luncheonette.

Between the Independent’s annual summer publishing hiatus and the High Holidays, it was November before Adam and I headed to Salt Spring. The travel ran like clockwork and we were pulling up to 122-149 Fulford Ganges Rd. right in time for lunch. We shared a Hungry Jew – a Montreal smoked meat sandwich with homemade horseradish sauce, coleslaw and, I kid you not, two latkes – and the Rabinowitz, Buzzy’s take on a Reuben. They were both incredibly good, and the only reason I’ve waited this long to share the news is because I wanted to wait until better weather, when people would be more likely to take a day or weekend getaway.

photo - Howard Busgang serves customers rugelach on a sunny November afternoon
Howard Busgang serves customers rugelach on a sunny November afternoon. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)

Even in winter, Buzzy’s was busy. Having arrived at prime feeding time, it was hard to get Busgang to sit down and, as we talked, he was constantly distracted – in a good way – by customers.

“Tell me, I’ll get you another sandwich before you go,” he said as he finally was able to join me at a table outside for the interview.

Born and raised in Montreal, stand-up comedy took Busgang first to Toronto and then to Los Angeles, where he met his wife, Melanie Weaver, and where he lived for 28 years, before returning to Canada.

“She’s Jewish-adjacent,” joked Busgang. “She was working for a rabbi when I met her.”

The two met on a blind date, he said, brought together by a Jewish comic who knew both of them.

When he started in comedy in the early 1980s, Busgang said, “There were not a lot of comics around. It wasn’t like today where every second person does stand-up, so it wasn’t that OK a profession,” as far as his parents were concerned. “It was kind of an oddity, like maybe he’ll grow out of this kind of thing.”

Busgang attended Jewish high school, then went to McGill University before heading to Toronto.

“You know where I started?” he said. “United Synagogue Youth, USY, that’s where I started. I was emceeing all their events and that led me to go professional.”

He recalled the first time he performed at amateur night in Toronto. “They packed the place with all these people from USY who knew me. It was packed, and it was great.”

photo - Howard Busgang, left, and Adam Bogoch prepare sandwiches
Howard Busgang, left, and Adam Bogoch prepare sandwiches. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)

So great, he said, that he was put into regular comedy shows right away, “which wasn’t so easy, by the way, because it wasn’t my friends anymore in the audience.”

When he was a stand-up comedian, Busgang did a lot of Jewish material. “I was a very Jewish comic,” he said.

In Los Angeles, he moved from stand-up to comedy writing. “I just was a little tired of the road,” he said, and performing caused him some anxiety.

“Listen, I had a respectable career, I did well, but I would constantly punish myself by asking, why am I doing this? But I think I do that with everything. I do that with this place [Buzzy’s], I do that as a writer.”

As Busgang was in the middle of saying he might just be a miserable guy, he was called back into the deli to help make a sandwich.

Weaver took his place. Her recollection was that a woman from the synagogue set up that first date.

“I was the only non-Jew in the whole place,” she said. However, Weaver was raised Jewishly, with her family observing some of the holidays, hosting seders, for example, and she taught at a Jewish camp. Born and raised in New York, she moved to Los Angeles some 30 years ago. She and Busgang have been married for about half that time.

“Howard had this property on Salt Spring our entire marriage,” she said. “And so, our entire marriage, I kept hearing ‘Salt Spring,’ ‘Salt Spring,’ and all I kept seeing was this property tax bill every month. I was, like, how good could it be? Then the elections and everything started to happen in the U.S. and it just got bad. We took a trip up here in September [2016], I fell in love and then we came in July [2017].”

A blended family, the couple has three daughters: Alexandra, 30, in Toronto; Emma, 20, in Seattle; and Hannah, 10, who was dividing her attention between helping in the deli and playing with a local dog while her mother was being interviewed.

Neither Busgang nor Weaver had any restaurant experience before opening Buzzy’s. “It’s funny,” she said. “The night before we were open, we had to learn the cash and I was almost in tears.”

The ignorance was a kind of blessing, she said. “I don’t think we knew what could go wrong, so ignorance was bliss, in this case.”

Their first day, there were lineups out the door.

“We got thrown into it, which was great,” she said. “I think if we had opened in the winter, when it was slow, it would have been a different experience.”

Busgang’s love of cooking seemed to have come out of nowhere, said Weaver. “And then he started to smoke his own meat. So, we had that in our back pocket.”

But the couple still wasn’t planning on opening a restaurant, until the location became available. “It was basherte,” she said.

In addition to Busgang’s meat-smoking skills, Weaver’s desire for a good tuna sandwich was a motivation. “So, again, why not open a deli? Not the brightest of ideas, but it worked out.”

photo - Howard Busgang’s father called him Buzzy, hence the deli’s name
Howard Busgang’s father called him Buzzy, hence the deli’s name. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)

And it’s hard work. There is only one staff member. Busgang smokes meat “around the clock,” said Weaver. “It’s like having a newborn. It’s a lot of work but the rewards – it’s a community, we’ve become part of a community and it means so much. My daughter gets to work the cash register. It’s crazy. We still can’t believe we have keys to this place.”

She said, “If we did anything right, it’s that we didn’t focus on the tourists, we focused on our people, and so we have a lot of loyalty here. I think people also come here [because] there’s a lot of cursing, a lot of bad behaviour, you can come here and just laugh, and that’s what we want. Come here, have a laugh, I’ll make you eat, you have to finish your plate or you go to your room. That was our business plan – make the community happy, hopefully make a few bucks.”

Since they opened, the menu has seen some additions; in particular, matzah ball soup and tomato soup. “We don’t want to get too big. We just want to stay like someone’s kitchen,” she said.

And the island has been very welcoming. “Someone knew that we want to make our own pickles, so they’re going to grow us cucumbers,” said Weaver as one example. “The love here,” she said, “it’s insane.”

Hannah, who had checked in a couple of times with her mother, joined the interview. In addition to sometimes working the cash, she delivers food to the Saturday market and to the bar a few doors down from the deli.

“That’s another thing,” said Weaver, “it’s a family joint.”

School runs four days a week and, while Hannah enjoys helping out, she was still getting used to living on the island. When she’s not working or at school, she’s probably at soccer or horseback riding; she had just received a paddleboard for her birthday. Though she has a couple of sandwiches named after her, her favourite is the grilled cheese.

“A lot of what we’re doing here has to do with taking the power back in our lives,” said Busgang, when he returned to the table. “It has to do with being in showbiz all those years and feeling like you had no control over anything and feeling like you’re handing over all the power to other people to validate you…. I was tired of it.”

Buzzy’s opened on June 22 last year. “Whereas, in show business, nobody wants to help you, in this business, I have so many people who want to help me.”

One of those people was William Kaminski, owner of Phat Deli in Vancouver, who Busgang described as a mentor.

“We’re not perfect but we’re figuring it out,” said Busgang.

The smoked meat he has got down to a science.

“We’re open till four o’clock and then I have to get my brisket ready for the next day, so I have to bathe the brisket,” he said. “We cure it for eight days – dry cure – and then I have to take the salt out, so we bathe it. I’m bathing a brisket right now and sometimes I sing to it. It’s very sweet. After I bathe it, then I put some rub on it and then I’ll take it home and we’ll smoke it for seven-and-a-half hours. And then it goes in the steamer for two, three hours.”

Finding rye bread was one of the early challenges.

“I knew I was in a special place,” he said, “because people would come by with bread and say, ‘Try this bread.’ They’d constantly come in and say, ‘What are you going to do about the bread?’ It became like a cause célèbre, the bread. It took me three months, and I got someone here on the island to make me an organic rye bread.”

Barb Slater makes the bread; Shigusa Saito, the knishes. Saito is now also “making a dark chocolate babka to die for,” wrote Busgang in a follow-up email. “If you’re not already dead, she’s also making us New York cheesecake, our soon-to-be-famous potato knishes, and rugelach.”

Meanwhile, Busgang – whose credits include having been a head Just for Laughs-gala writer, creating the award-winning sitcom The Tournament and writing for TV series Boy Meets World and Good Advice, among many others – is still writing, still pitching shows. Earlier that afternoon, he was slicing meat while plugged into his phone, listening to a meeting in which a producer was trying to put a deal together.

Weaver popped out to say that Busgang often has to go next door to finish his calls because the meat in the charger of his cellphone prevents his phone from charging. “There’s meat everywhere,” she said.

photo - The November sunset as seen from the ferry, en route home
The November sunset as seen from the ferry, en route home. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)

A couple of relatively new customers stopped to say hello to Busgang and Weaver. They said they were slowly adding Buzzy’s to their list of usual places to eat.

And, said Busgang and Weaver, local Jews have discovered, by going to Buzzy’s and meeting fellow Jews, that there actually is a Jewish community on the island.

“We’re blessed to have this,” said Busgang.

As he explained the deli’s name – his father called him Buzzy – Hannah returned, offering him a taste of a new salad dressing she had created. “Daddy, just try it.”

“Interesting,” he said, “I like it.”

“It’s gross,” she corrected him.

Three generations seemed present in that moment.

As the interview came to an end, Busgang asked, “Do you want some rugelach? I gotta keep feeding you.”

Buzzy’s is open Monday to Saturday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Find them at facebook.com/buzzysluncheonette and then head to bcferries.com and start planning your trip.

Format ImagePosted on March 22, 2019March 24, 2019Author Cynthia RamsayCategories TravelTags Buzzy's, deli, entrepreneur, food, Howard Busgang, Melanie Weaver, restaurant, Salt Spring Island, smoked meat
סטארט תל אביב

סטארט תל אביב

סטארט אפ קנדה עומדת לסיים את הליך ההתמודדות לבחירת אישה יזמית של סטארט אפ לתחרות הבינלאומית ‘סטארט תל אביב’, שתערך בחודש ספטמבר הקרוב.

אישה ממציאה: מסתיים הליך ההתמודדות לבחירת אישה יזמית של סטארט אפ לתחרות בינלאומית בתל אביב

סטארט אפ קנדה עומדת לסיים את הליך ההתמודדות לבחירת אישה יזמית של סטארט אפ לתחרות הבינלאומית ‘סטארט תל אביב’, שתערך בחודש ספטמבר הקרוב. התחרות תתקיים במשך חמישה ימים (25-29) וישתתפו בה נציגות משלושים מדינות שונות. הפרוייקט של סטארט אפ קנדה לבחירת הנציגה שתגיע לתל אביב מתקיים בחסות שגרירות ישראל בקנדה וחברת יו.פי.אס. הזוכה תזכה בכרטיס זוגי ואירוח מלא בתל אביב.

התנאים להצגת מועמדות להשתתפות באירוע בתל אביב: אישה עד גיל ארבעים, ממציאה של סטארט אפ, הסטארט אפ נמצא ופועל מחוץ לקנדה, הסטארט אפ מבוסס על טכנולוגיה או עושה שימוש בטכנולוגיה בדרך חדשנית וקריאטיבית. יצוין כי רק נציגה אחת מכל חברת סטארט אפ יכולה להציג מועמדותה לאירוע. המועד האחרון להגשת מועמדות נקבע לארבעה ביולי.

במסגרת הביקור בתל אביב הנציגה הקנדית ביחד עם הנציגות מהמדינות הנוספות תפגשנה יזמים ישראלים בולטים, משקיעים, אמנים, יוצרים ומדענים. בהם: ראש עיריית תל אביב רון חולדאי, יוסי ורדי, אורלי שני ורותי קורן. האורחות מחו”ל ישתתפו בפסטיבל החדשות של עיריית תל אביב הנקרא ‘אולד’ וכן במספר בהרצאות וסדנאות בינלאומיות. הפסטיבל משמש זירת מפגש בין עולם ההיי-טק והחדשנות בישראל, לבין הזירה הבינלאומית והציבור הרחב. הפסטיבל כולל אירועים, סיורים, מפגשים, ביקורים בחברות סטארט אפ ועוד. יצויין כי ‘סטארט תל אביב’ מנוהל על ידי משרד החוץ של ישראל ומתקיים מזה חמש שנים.

סטארט אפ קנדה יצא לדרך בשנת 2012 על ידי היזמית ויקטוריה לינוקס. הארגון משתף פעולה עם שלוש מאות גופים ברחבי קנדה, בניהול מאתיים אירועים בארבעים קהילות שונות. עד היום כעשרים אלף איש השתתפו באירועים של סטארט אפ קנדה. הארגון הצליח כבר ליצור קשר בין שלושת אלפים יזמים עם סטארטאפיסטים. על השותפים של המסחרים של סטארט אפ קנדה נמנים: סקוטיה בנק, מיקרוסופט, יו.פי.אס והפיינשל פוסט.

לפי נתונים של בנק אוף מונטריאול מיליון וחצי קנדיים מועסקים על ידי חברות בבעלות נשים. ואילו על פי נתוני בנק אר.בי.סי עסקים בבעלות נשים בקנדה תורמים מאה ארבעים ושמונה מיליארד דולר לכלכלה הקנדית מדי שנה.

אישה מתחזה: אישה מחופשת עם פאה ומשקפיים התייצבה למבחן נהיגה ברכב במקום אמה

בוחן נהיגה וותיק במחוז אונטריו הופתע מאוד לראות שלמבחן נהיגה ברכב (טסט) שהייה אמור להתקיים עם נבחנת מבוגרת בת 73, התייצבה אישה חבושה בפאה ועם משקפיים כהים. הבוחן לא היה צריך להתאמץ במיוחד לראות שהנבחנת לידו (במושב הנהג), נראית הרבה יותר צעירה מאישה בת 73. לאחר שהתעשת הבוחן החליט כן לאפשר לצעירה המחופשת לבצע את הטסט במקום אמה. בו בזמן הוא הודיע למנהליו במשרד על האירוע החמור, ואלו הזעיקו מייד את השוטרים שעצרו אותה.

האישה בת ה-39 הודתה בחקירתה בתחנת המשטרה כי היא בתה של הנבחנת המבוגרת שלנחצה מאוד מהטסט ופחדה להיכשל. הבת (ששמה לא פורסם בשלב זה על ידי המשטרה) הוסיפה עוד, כי היא חשבה שהיא דווקא כן פעלה נכון כיוון “כשעזרה” לאמה, והתייצבה למבחן הנהיגה במקומה. במשטרה כמובן לא קיבלו את הסבריה אלה של המתחזה והיא תעמוד למשפט במהלך חודש יולי הקרוב. שני סעיפי האישום נגד האישה: התחזות ועבירה פלילית. אם תורשע העונש המקסימלי על שתי עברות אלה הוא חצי שנה בכלא וקנס בגובה חמשת אלפים דולר. סביר להניח שהנאשמת תתרחק מתחפושות לפחות בתקופה הקרובה.

Format ImagePosted on June 29, 2016June 29, 2016Author Roni RachmaniCategories עניין בחדשותTags driving exam, entrepreneur, Ontario, startup, Tel Aviv, Victoria Lennox, wig, women, אונטריו, ויקטוריה לינוקס, יזמית, מבחן נהיגה ברכב, סטארט אפ, פאה, תל אביב
Making healthy connections

Making healthy connections

High-tech entrepreneur Galya Westler is at TEDxStanleyPark on May 28. (photo from Galya Westler)

The social media available to help us connect with one another are ever-increasing, but they are not always effective. In fact, they often have the opposite effect – when we realize the relations they engender are illusory, we experience feelings of loneliness and inadequacy. So says Galya Westler, a local high-tech entrepreneur, who is creating a simpler, more intimate solution to connect people with their respective communities.

In keeping with the theme of “Ideas to Action,” Westler – along with 14 other local thought leaders – will take the stage at the third annual TEDxStanleyPark on May 28 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. She will deliver a talk entitled Social Media Obesity and Loneliness. She will discuss the growing phenomenon of social media addiction, recount her personal experiences in trying to connect with others during a particularly traumatic period in her life and explore how to use technology to overcome a social media addiction.

According to Westler, too many people suffer from what she terms “social media obesity,” or an addiction to social media, and are “pigging out on selfies of attention.” Moreover, in their effort to be noticed, social media addicts often lose appreciation of how they act in the online world – and exaggerations serve only to enhance the gap between online personas and reality. The ultimate consequence: feelings of inadequacy, disappointment, depression and loneliness.

Westler examines the subject from the point of view of a social media developer with a decade of experience in creating or enhancing online communities. This summer, she will launch Plazus Mobile Social App Builder, her most ambitious social media application platform to date.

Born in Montreal, Westler grew up in Ra’anana after her Israeli parents returned home upon her father’s completion of his PhD at the University of Montreal.

She served as a commander of a radar post in the Gaza Strip during her mandatory military service with the Israel Defence Forces. She describes her experience as “amazing” and “life-changing.” Introverted and lacking confidence in high school, she said her army service – carried out in a male-dominated environment – enabled her to blossom into an outgoing and hardworking soldier who rose to challenges. She would carry this learned lesson with her as she pursued higher education.

Despite an affinity for the humanities, Westler enrolled in Shenkar College’s four-year software engineering program. She had been counseled to do so by her father, a senior high-tech professional in Israel, who told her: “If you study software engineering, the doors will open for you.”

The program was challenging and Westler struggled – not only with the material, but also with the pressure from those around her who suggested she give up and drop out. This discouragement only strengthened her resolve and she persevered to finish the program. Of the 40 students who had enrolled with her, only 11 completed their studies. Westler was the only female graduate.

After a year of working in Israel’s high-tech industry, Westler decided to move back to Canada, settling in British Columbia. She worked for a number of tech companies before opting to incorporate her own, giving her the independence she sought. “I did the corporate-ladder thing, but never quite fit in,” she said.

Since incorporating her first company, 2Galvanize Ltd., in 2008, Westler has built close to 100 websites, mobile applications and backend systems for different companies, including the Yellow Pages. She specializes in creating private social “ecosystems,” or networks, that enable people to communicate on an “authentic” level, unlike other social media sites that she describes as too big and overwhelming to navigate and digest. Her mission is to create systems that support efforts that enable people to communicate in a manner emblematic of times past: “more intimate, more humbly and, very importantly, in small groups.” This led to her involvement with Bazinga, an app that connects building residents to their strata councils, and Wag Around, an app that connects dog owners and facilitates interactions offline.

Simplifying genuine communication between people and their respective communities is what motivates Westler to develop new tools. “The reason I do the work I do is because I truly want to connect people, and the best way to do that is to give them an excuse to connect based on common interests,” she explained.

Westler’s newest commercial development, Plazus Mobile Social App Builder, applies the principle of connecting people in the business realm as a means of facilitating dialogue or enhancing brand. The name combines the words “plaza” and “us,” a tongue-in-cheek homage to more traditional ways of communicating.

Set to launch at the end of June, Plazus is a B2B (business to business) social media tool that will provide a company or organization with an easy, structured and relatively inexpensive way to connect with their customers and communities in their own social ecosystems. It seeks to do this functionally, interactively and in an esthetically appealing manner.

Westler is filled with anticipation as her two seed investors, a team of 10 techies and more than 60 early-adopter customers, eagerly await the launch of Plazus Technologies’ beta product.

Westler credits many of her entrepreneurial successes in Canada to her Israeli chutzpah. Although she misses Israel, particularly Tel Aviv’s culture and lifestyle, and acknowledges that research and development thrives in Israel because of wonderful talent, she said that her seven years in Vancouver have been “amazing … it’s paradise.”

Westler’s goal is to continue to grow her business and open offices in both Vancouver and Tel Aviv, which would enable her to travel regularly between the two places in the world she loves most.

She said it is important for her to stay connected to Israel for both personal and professional reasons, and she has spoken in Israel about her work and her entrepreneurial path on more than one occasion, including to a women’s Lean In Circle at Google’s office in Tel Aviv and at StarTAU, Tel Aviv University’s Entrepreneurship Centre.

True to her commitment to connect individuals with like-minded community members, Westler herself is involved in a number of different groups and causes. She serves as president of the Vancouver Entrepreneurs Toastmasters Club and is active in several other local business organizations.

For more information about TEDxStanleyPark, visit tedxstanleypark.com or email [email protected].

Alexis Pavlich is a Vancouver-based freelance writer.

Format ImagePosted on May 20, 2016May 20, 2016Author Alexis PavlichCategories LocalTags app, entrepreneur, high-tech, Plazus, TEDxStanleyPark, Westler
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