This Commerce Life

Zane Caplansky opened what's considered Toronto's first pop-up restaurant — a deli inside a dive bar in Little Italy — and turned it into one of the city's most beloved institutions. Along the way he appeared on Dragon's Den three times, got featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and You Gotta Eat Here, ran a food truck, a catering empire, and a College Street restaurant that had lineups for years.

Then his landlord locked him out at midnight — rent paid, no warning — and it cost him $100,000 in legal fees and nearly broke him.

But that gut punch turned out to be the pivot that changed everything.

Zane joins Phil and Kenny to talk about the full arc: the scrappy pop-up beginnings, the Dragon's Den pitches (including Jim Treliving famously not understanding what a food truck was), the public humiliation of the lockout, closing the deli, moving to Tofino, becoming a dad at 53 — and why reviving the Caplansky's mustard brand as a CPG product might be the smartest thing he's ever done.

What do you do when the brand you built to over $100 million goes bankrupt — and then you get the chance to buy it back? That's exactly what Amelia Warren and Kyle Vucko did with Epicure.

In this episode, Phil and Kenny sit down with the co-managing directors of the relaunched Epicure — a Canadian spice and seasoning brand with a fiercely loyal customer base, a surprising MLM origin story, and a bold new omnichannel strategy. 

Amelia served as CEO of the original Epicure for 17 years. Kyle co-founded Indochino before joining Epicure as COO. Together, they acquired the brand's assets out of bankruptcy in April 2025 and relaunched it by September — rebuilding the supply chain, re-engaging customers, and moving the brand into retail for the first time.

 

Check out Epicure here: https://epicure.com

Phil and Kenny sit down with Bonnie Joyce — the photographer and web designer behind some of the best headshots This Commerce Life has ever had (which, admittedly, is a low bar). Bonnie runs Bonnie Joyce Creative Studio, a photography and Wix web design business based in Eastern Ontario, where she's built over 500 websites and shot everything from brand sessions to adoption hearings.

In this episode, we get into why Bonnie chose Wix over WordPress — and why that decision actually makes more sense for small business owners than the industry gives it credit for. We talk about the real cost of being locked out of your own website, how AI is reshaping both photography and web design (and where it absolutely cannot replace a human), and what it means to intentionally not scale your business.

Bonnie also shares her winding path from political science and copywriting at Zulu Alpha Kilo in Toronto to building a creative studio that she genuinely loves showing up for every day. It's a great conversation about building a business on your own terms — and ignoring everyone who tells you you should be doing more.

 

Check out Bonnie's website and services here: https://www.bonniejoycecreativestudio.ca/

You can find Bonnie here as well: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bonnie-joyce-7215a64/

If you missed our last episode on Expo Antad - you can find it here: https://youtu.be/TnzKD1KBhtw?si=Aqlda7CAFFHmhONd

The survival math behind Vancouver's independent restaurant scene — and why cheap food is never actually cheap.

Phil and Kenny sit down with Robert Belcham — a 35-year Vancouver chef, restaurateur behind Campanolo, Monarch Burger, and Poppina Canteen, and board member of the Chef's Table Society of BC — for one of the most candid conversations about the business of food we've ever had on This Commerce Life.

Robert pulls back the curtain on what it actually takes to keep a restaurant alive in one of Canada's most expensive cities: the unforgiving margins, the perception-of-value trap that operators fall into, why independent restaurants are chronically underpricing themselves, and what it would take for the whole industry to collectively raise prices and survive.

 

Check out: https://chefstablesociety.com/

Julie Therrien has spent 28 years selling Canadian cookies to the world — and she's got the stories to prove it. As Western Canada Sales Rep for Biscuits Leclerc (the family behind Celebration Cookies, Go Pure bars, and that iconic air travel snack you definitely know), 

Julie joins Kenny and Phil to talk about her unlikely path from Quebec City to Guadalajara to Vancouver, what it really takes to break into export markets, and why the Canadian food industry's tight-knit community is one of its greatest competitive advantages.