As told to Lindsey Norris
Spend a few minutes watching Henrik and Daniel Sedin play for the Vancouver Canucks and you’ll have no trouble believing that twins possess an extra something the rest of us don’t. They seem to read one another’s minds; one is always ready to capitalize on the other’s play. Darren and Dwayne Gauthier know all about the twin phenomenon. With four friends, the 19-year-old identicals left the Maritimes, moved to Alberta and worked in the oil industry for a few years. Then the two started a landscaping business. Now 29, the Gauthiers have also opened Restaurant 27, a high-end restaurant in Red Deer to introduce the city of big-box restaurant franchises to adventurous menu items such as duck and rabbit. (The name references the age they were when they started the restaurant.) Sure, there have some differences. Dwayne is 15 minutes older; Darren is a more reserved (in their partnership, he handles the numbers). But their approach to business, and life, is remarkably similar.
Dwayne Gauthier presides over the kitchen and brother Darren handles the front of house
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Dwayne: I didn’t work in the oil industry right away. I went to NAIT’s culinary program. I worked in kitchens in an Edmonton hotel and a restaurant. I was passing through Red Deer en route to a job in Calgary when I decided to stay. I helped manage an East Coast, maritime-themed bar. I was working 70, 80 hours a week for $1,600 a month. I saw all these people around me making good money, so I called it quits and said I wasn’t working in another restaurant till I owned my own.
I worked in the oilfield for the next five years or so. Then my fiancée was pregnant, and I was still spending seven months of the year away from home. When we got into the oil rigs, the idea was always that we would save money to buy a restaurant. It didn’t quite work out. It’s more fun buying toys and motorcycles. But I’ve always been passionate about the restaurant business. Even in the oilfield I would spend days and nights watching the Food Network.
Darren and I are side by side 24/7. If anyone gets jealous, it’s my fiancée and Darren’s girlfriend. Yesterday, for example, I was at the restaurant at 10 a.m. until 11 p.m. Then we picked up our landscaping gear and did snow removal until 3 a.m. We went home, got some sleep and were back at the restaurant first thing in the morning.
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Category: Articles, Entrepreneurship, Profiles, Work
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