F
or Je Donnelly, whose motto is "Be true
to yourself and your neighbourhood—the
people will follow," a pub should be truly
a local. In 1999 at the age of 24, he bought
The Bimini, licensed in the '70s as B.C.'s ¡rst
neighbourhood pub and birthplace of Green-
peace. Inspired by British gastropubs with foodie
menus, updated decor and DJs playing, Donnelly
introduced the concept at The Bimini and hasn't
looked back. Donnelly Group now operates
11 public houses, three cocktail taverns, two
nightclubs, two national pizza franchises and ¡ve
barbershops—each with its own neighbourhood
character—and is expanding to Toronto. "We've
never been outside of Vancouver so I'm spending
a ton of time in Toronto right now, and I love it,"
he says. "There's so many similarities with the
densely populated little pockets. It's going to be
pretty fun for us." —F.S.
W
hen Mandy Farmer
took over Accent
Inns from her
father in July 2008, the
first three months were
smooth sailing. Then the
recession hit, and revenue
dropped. A year later, she
discovered all five inns had
leaky building envelopes
requiring extensive repairs.
Undaunted, Farmer used
the renovations to update,
rebrand and reposition in
a changing economy. And
in 2014, she achieved her
dream of opening a fun,
affordable, midcentury-
style motel: Hotel Zed in
Victoria. Unable to convince
her three elderly busi-
ness partners to buy an
appropriate property, she
had spotted a midcentury
diamond-shaped motif
hidden beneath 1980s
awnings on the company's
independently run
Blueridge Motel and real-
ized, "I've got my diamond
in the rough." In its first
year, revenue is projected
to grow 50 per cent, and
Farmer is looking for proper-
ties to transform into Hotel
Zeds. "I think there's a lot of
really bland hotel product
out there," she says.
"Accent Inns and Hotel
Zed, they're a breath of
fresh air." –F.S.
R U N N E R † U P
M a n d y F a r m e r
[ P R E S I D E N T A N D C E O , A C C E N T I N N S A N D H O T E L Z E D ]
R U N N E R † U P
J e f f r e y D o n n e l l y
[ P R E S I D E N T, D O N N E L LY G R O U P ]
OCTOBER 2015 BCBusiness 41 BCBUSINESS.CA
