LITTLE CURRENT—It has been quite a year for Lavish Dhir, who is celebrating his first anniversary as the owner of Lavish Your Independent Grocer in Little Current. He arrived on the Island after spending a couple of years in Timmins, where he was an assistant manager. Since then, Mr. Dhir has spent the past 12 months getting a handle on operations in Little Current’s only grocery store and learning more about the Island community, and now he is welcoming his new bride to Manitoulin as well.
Mr. Dhir recently married his wife Simran who has now joined him from Winnipeg. He met his future wife while they were both attending a tutorial school in India about eight years ago. “We met back in India,” said Mr. Dhir. “I saw her at a tuition centre, she was getting tuition after school, and I was getting tuition there as well. So, that’s where I saw her and I liked her.”
But despite being immediately smitten, it wasn’t an immediate fairytale connection for Mr. Dhir. “At that time, I kind of approached her, but as you know, usually girls are always going to say no,” he smiled. But if there is one quality that strikes one upon getting to know Mr. Dhir is that he is not one to be daunted by a bit of hard work.
So, “I’m here and she is here today,” he grins.
When he was younger, back in India, Mr. Dhir had never considered going abroad to seek his fortune. It was his father who first broached the idea.
“There is no such thing that I want to go to Canada,” he said. “My dad asked me, ‘what do you think about, you know, studying outside, so you will get some experience. It will be great for you. What do you think about it?’ So, I was, like, ‘yeah, I can give it a thought,’ so I give it a thought. And then, it’s, like you know what? Let’s try it. At that moment, there was no such plan. There was just a plan to study.”
His initial introduction to the Great White North was not entirely auspicious.
“When I landed, I was in Toronto for three days or four days, it was in December,” he recalled. Quite a difference from his native India where December marks the beginning of winter with daytime temperatures ranging around 24°C.
A friend gave him a lift to Sudbury where Mr. Dhir began his career in the grocery business. Sudbury was another big shock. Toronto was a large city, with plenty of concrete, something he was well used to. In Sudbury, it was very different (along with being significantly colder).
“I was like, ‘where the heck am I?’” he recalled. “This looks like a town, like it’s a small town compared to Toronto and compared to the big cities. It was so cold, it was literally a huge pile of snow.”
“But it didn’t discourage me,” he laughs. “It was like, you know that’s what the destination is, so everyone has their destination and it’s already been chosen by God, so I trust the plan of it. And then, you know what? This is something better. If I’ve been in Toronto, there might not be any Independent stores in Toronto, so I would never have gained the experience of them.”
Things soon started to look up. “I started my career in Sudbury, and it was going great,” he recalled. “I had great leaders on my way who helped me to build. I started just as a regular clerk there.”
From there he was moved from department to department. “I was started as a cashier, and then I go to different departments. So, in the bakery for some time, and then I helped in dairy, then helping grocery. So, basically working all the departments there, which, I think, my leaders noticed and when there was a role of management that came up in that store I got promoted to a department manager.”
His work ethic obviously did not go unnoticed and when the store owner, who also had a store in Timmins said he had an opening for an assistant manager, Mr. Dhir was recommended for the job. “It was easier for him because he knew my skills,” he said. For the next couple of years he settled in Timmins learning store upper management skills.
“One day my owner asked me , ‘Lavish, what do you want to do in your life?’ So, I was just being straightforward, ‘I want to open Lavish’s Independent.’”
“I’m passionate about business,” said Mr. Dhir. “So, today, here I am.”
Many new Canadians settle in larger centres like Toronto, where they can find comfort and familiarity in the already settled diaspora from their homelands.
“I remember when I came to Sudbury, there was not a lot of that much (familiar) culture, not a lot of cultural activities going at that time, but now it’s huge,” he said. “It’s unbelievable.” He referenced the recent Diwali Festival celebration in Sudbury and the availability of new foods.
“Diwali is just like a Christmas for the South Asian community,” he explains. “It’s a big festival, and there are a couple places we call to get some sweets and they are like, sorry, we are sold out.”
One big positive in running a store in a rural region like Manitoulin is that the street drug culture is much less evident here.
“I believe there is a lot of drug addicts you need to deal with in a city like Sudbury and other places,” he said, “but here that’s not it’s not that much—it’s not as bad.”
“When I was in Timmins, the cashiers were scared,” he said, “because the drug addicts would come in and try to steal, and if you tried to stop them, people would create so much conflict. They will yell and scream threats.”
Of course, it isn’t like there were not challenges here on the Island as well, especially when it comes to hiring staff. There simply were not enough applicants to fill all the roles needed in the store—and its wasn’t simple to hire from outside either.
Finding housing for staff who don’t already live here on Manitoulin has been a big challenge.
“It was definitely difficult, a little bit of a challenging time,” he said. “We were looking for a staff and there was nobody’s applying.”
Mr. Dhir asked around and discovered it wasn’t just his store facing those challenges.
“People wonder why we won’t employ people from the Island—there are no issues,” he said. “It’s hard to find the staff.” He noted that the Manitoulin Hotel and Conference Centre has to supply some of its staff with accomodations.
“The problem is not so much finding the people, the problem is the housing,” explained Mr. Dhir. “If you have housing, people will come.”
Thankfully, he notes, most people understand that. “People here are smart,” he said. “They can see what has been going on in the economy.”
In the meantime, with things now settling in well with the store, Mr. Dhir and his wife are settling into the community. They do not yet have children—that’s a work in progress, the couple smiles.
Lavish Your Independent Grocer has been supporting local charities like the Good Food Box Program, Manitoulin Health Centre, contributing to Manitoulin Family Resources Food Bank, the Royal Canadian Legion and just enjoying community events like Halloween. “We’re having a plan that we posted on Facebook,” he said. “If kids come in dressed up like, let’s say like hot sauce, they will get a hot sauce. They dress up like a taco—they’ll get a taco. It’s just like a fun activity,” he said.
Yes, we know what you are thinking, I’ll dress up like a steak. Nice try. There’s roughly an eight dollar or so limit.
But however they choose to dress up, “All the kids who dress up will get a treat for sure,” said Mr. Dhir. “Doesn’t matter what they dress up as.”
Mr. Dhir’s message to the Manitoulin community is “Thank you so much for their support and thanks for being open-minded.” Oh, and if you are looking for work, there is always an open door at Lavish Your Independent Grocer. “We will get more done when we have more staff,” he said. “And on top of it, we’ll try to help.”
“It’s all about giving back to the community, and we would love to support community events,” he said. Currently, the store is raising funds at the cashier for PC Children’s Charity.
The Dhir family express their gratitude for the warm welcome they have received and are looking forward to meeting more people in the community socially.