Today marks The Breakfast Pig’s 10th anniversary as an immensely popular Sault eatery.
“I started this business with a $15,000 loan from my brother and basically just my enthusiasm,” said Angela Caputo, The Breakfast Pig’s owner in an interview with SooToday.
“I opened the doors and I'm not a really religious person but I prayed I could make this work, and from the second we opened right up until today this place has really done well,” Caputo said.
There’s a story behind how the restaurant got its name.
“I used to live on John Street and I would walk my dog around the area and there was a fenced-in pen at one of the houses. One day we walked by and there was a pig in the pen and Tytus, my dog, made fast friends with the pig,” Caputo said.
“We found out that the pig's name was Breakfast. It quickly turned into me walking my dog up in the morning by saying, ‘hey buddy, do you want to go for a walk and see the breakfast pig?’”
Did the pig eventually become breakfast?
“No, he lived a long life,” Caputo said.
“When I decided to open this restaurant, The Breakfast Pig just seemed like such a fitting name for so many reasons. It brings back memories of Breakfast the pig. I loved my dog Tytus. He passed away in September at nearly 14 years old and this is great because he's sort of immortalized here in that way.”
The Breakfast Pig uses mostly locally sourced food, including pork.
“I really wanted to bring people back to where their food came from. I think we've lost that connection. Breakfast has a lot to do with pigs and it led me to working with local farmers and trying to bring people back to their roots with food,” Caputo said.
Open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. seven days a week with dine-in, takeout and patio service, The Breakfast Pig serves an all-day breakfast and brunch menu that includes a wide variety of sweet and savoury dishes.
Its dishes contain creative mixes of ingredients.
‘The Angela,’ for example, is a grilled potato hash with sauteed onions, mushrooms, asparagus and spinach, two poached eggs, goat cheese and finished with balsamic glaze.
To celebrate 10 years in business, The Breakfast Pig will soon release an all-time favourites menu for its customers.
“We're bringing back the ‘50 doughnut, bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich.’ We’re bringing back ‘The Adonis,’ which is our version of a vegetarian Eggs Benedict with roasted red peppers, goat cheese, poached eggs and it's topped with pesto and balsamic. It’s got a kind of Mediterranean vibe.
"We're bringing a lot of favourites back and I think people are really going to like this menu,” Caputo said.
Caputo worked as a server at several establishments in the Sault’s food and beverage industry before launching The Breakfast Pig in 2015.
“I was social and I loved that aspect of being a server. I was good at it. As I got more and more into it, I realized I really loved the food aspect of it.
"I love knowing everything about a dish and everywhere I worked people thought I owned the place because I knew everything about the various dishes. I wanted to be able to provide people with the best service and the most information that I could.”
Located at 265 Bruce St., The Breakfast Pig has had some memorable moments.
“We've seen people propose here. We’ve had baby announcements be given here. We had a woman say ‘hey dad, I'm pregnant’ here in this restaurant. We’ve seen babies grow into 10-year-olds.
"It has been one of the greatest joys of my life to watch people enjoy each other’s company and enjoy the food in this restaurant.”
The Breakfast Pig has a faithful clientele of regular customers that keeps the restaurant bustling with activity.
Caputo is grateful for that.
“It’s been a really amazing journey and I just want to thank the community for supporting us.”
