Black Sheep
Black Sheep
Bigger and Better on the Halifax Waterfront
BY LOLA AUGUSTINE BROWN
PHOTOS MICHELLE DOUCETTE
Search out “best brunch Halifax,” and Black Sheep appears on pretty much every list. Fans of this super cool spot right on the Halifax Waterfront line up for a table every weekend, eager to sample a brisket benny with sauerkraut or perhaps s’mores waffles, chased down with something delicious from their “Breakfast drinks” cocktail menu. In the evenings, diners flock here for perfectly executed upscale comfort food and Black Sheep’s award-winning cocktail program. The restaurant has been serving incredible eats and drinks for almost eight years, though much has changed since its humble hole-in-the-wall origins.
John House
In 2015, Black Sheep opened as a small restaurant on Dresden Row and operated a pop-up within Good Robot Brewing Company for several years. From the start, their food was inspired and exciting, contributing to a growing dining scene that was finally taking off in a city full of hungry young chefs. Sure, they were near capacity for every service, and there were long line-ups for brunch, but they only felt the need to move once their lease was up and a hefty rent hike forced their hand. “We really had no choice but to leave the other place. If we didn't do this, then we were going just to have to walk away from the restaurant altogether,” explains John House, now the sole owner of Black Sheep.
House had been talking with Killam Properties, which had been working to bring more upscale businesses to the Halifax Brewery Market. The Red Stag Tavern wasn’t renewing its lease, and the space seemed like the perfect spot to grow Black Sheep. The Brewery Market is full of historic charm, and visitors flock there—so where better to capitalize on the tourists who travel here in search of incredible culinary experiences? After extensive renovations, Black Sheep opened in that location in September 2020, a rough time to be in the restaurant business thanks to COVID-19.
Fattening Up the Sheep
At Dresden Row, Black Sheep had 45 seats inside and 20 on the patio. In contrast, their Brewery Market location has 140 seats inside and 65 outside. “We pretty much tripled in size, so we had to scale up everything we were doing,” House says. “But just having a better facility with a bigger, nicer kitchen allowed us to do that. We had more space to hire more great people, and having such a great team backing me up made that process easier.” Even throughout the turmoil of Covid, House says that, fortunately, he has never had too much trouble securing staff. ”It’s always been tough to find good long-term people in this industry, even before the pandemic, but we've been really lucky to have a solid crew that has helped attract other confident people,” House says. You’ll notice the leadership team at Black Sheep listed on the restaurant website alongside their impressive accomplishments. House is proud of his people and relies on them to help knock it out of the park at every service.
Making such a big move during the pandemic was, of course, a challenge.
One major stressor for House was when the much-loved local bakery, The Old Apothecary, which had just scaled up and moved into the Brewery Market, suddenly went out of business. “This was three days before we opened, and it was scary. I thought, “Man, can we make this work if they couldn’t?” he says.
Black Sheep’s loyal clientele supported their move—after all, more space means less chance you’d be lining up down the block to get a table for their stellar brunch—and House set up a Kickstarter campaign to help raise funds for the move. They offered funders exclusive benefits for donating, from branded masks and toques to catering an hors d'oeuvres party for 40 guests. Hundreds of people contributed, raising almost $33,000 (exceeding their goal by a cool grand).
The support that House and his team received helped them feel that they were doing the right thing, and the move went surprisingly smoothly considering the uncertainty of the pandemic, but it was, of course, stressful. “There were many nights that I only slept two hours, and then I would just go down to the site at four in the morning and continue working on stuff when we were doing construction,” House says.
After two nights of soft openings, House knew everything would be okay. “They were fun nights, and we felt good. Obviously, there were some speed bumps and stuff, but it was way smoother than I kind of expected,” he says. Diners were thrilled to see Black Sheep in this impressive new space and no doubt loved that it was much easier to secure a table.
Shifting Tastes
Not surprisingly, this new location has seen the restaurant’s clientele change somewhat, especially in the summer when Black Sheep is open seven days a week. “We’d built up a bit of a reputation and that definitely draws people to us, but being close to the brewery means that people find us by extension of that as well,” explains House.
While many of the original Black Sheep staples from back in the Dresden Row days are still on the menu, it made sense to broaden the menu to capitalize on the tourists heading to the Brewery Market and Halifax Waterfront. “We shifted the focus, bringing more seafood to our nighttime menu because we felt there was a gap in this neighbourhood,” House explains, “Now roughly seventy percent of our nighttime menu is seafood oriented.” As you’d expect, every dish from Black Sheep’s kitchen is far beyond your typical touristic fare. The halibut is sourdough-crusted, and their surf and turf combines a 10-ounce dry-aged Atlantic beef ribeye with lobster thermador with warm potato salad, bacon vinaigrette and a veal demi. And the bouillabaisse features snow crab, scallops, mussels, shrimp, clams, and cod.
House feels lucky that most of the time, things at Black Sheep run smoothly. “So as long as nothing breaks and nothing goes wrong,” he says, “The issue is that things often do break or go wrong, and you can never predict what those things might be, especially in a shared space like this building.” This vulnerability leads to random events such as a kid yanking on the fire alarm lever in the Brewery Market and everyone having to evacuate during a packed brunch seating, or a contractor breaking off a sprinkler head and the fire suppression system for the whole building going off meaning another evacuation on one busy Friday afternoon. Despite annoyances like that, House loves being in the Brewery Market. “I think it's one of the coolest buildings in the city, I always have, and it’s been so great to see this market thrive after it suffered a little when the new Seaport Market was built. It’s always busy here now,” he says, “And there always going to be stresses, whatever your location.”
If It Ain’t Broke
House has no plans to expand and is perfectly happy with keeping things as they are. He is not interested in opening another restaurant. “I wouldn’t want to spread myself too thin and would much rather just have one place run really well. It's a lot just to have one spot. It's a beast, and owning a business is always challenging, but I do enjoy it. I can't really imagine what else I would ever do,” says House.
Originally from Newfoundland, House went to culinary college in PEI and moved to Halifax 12 years ago—he worked at Gio for five years before opening Black Sheep— and has watched the restaurant scene grow. “Pretty much every restaurant in the city that I would want to go to has opened since I've moved here,” he says, “And the company we keep is great. The more restaurants we have in the city, the better.” House doesn’t cook anymore because running the restaurant takes all of his attention, and as much as he misses that side of his career, running things feels like a natural progression. “I’ll cook myself a nice breakfast, but I’m at the restaurant most of the time and tend to eat there for lunch and dinner,” he says, adding that Black Sheep’s tuna tartare is his current go-to.
When asked what makes Black Sheep so enduringly popular, House says it’s because they are all about making food that people want to eat, that isn’t overly fussy and is comforting. “I guess that’s my food philosophy. For example, we have just a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup on the menu. It's simple, but it's on really good bread, using good cheese and Santa Rosa tomatoes in the soup,” he says, “We try not to overthink things, and we make everything from scratch more or less.” Clearly, this is a formula that works. And it makes Black Sheep one of the best places to eat and sip on the Halifax Waterfront.
