Easter Sunday breakfast will be served for the first time at the Kiwanis Willows Beach Tea Room this weekend.
It’s been a winter of innovation at the historic landmark of the Kiwanis Club of Oak Bay, a season of Sunday breakfasts that will end April 7 with a projected $10,000 generated to benefit the Kiwanis Pavilion complex care facility.
For six decades as only a warm-weather facility, the Kiwanis Tea Room in Willows Park began opening for winter Sunday breakfasts last January and the experiment has proven quite popular.
“On sunny days we serve over 100 breakfasts – as many as 120 – in the three hours,” said Brian Beckett, acting chair of the Oak Bay Kiwanis Pavilion Foundation.
Wall-to-wall windows provide a panorama view of sea, beach front and park. “But on grey days we still have 70 or 80 here for breakfast,” Beckett said.
Thermal windows – and now an upgraded electrical system allowing better heating in what was originally designed as a summer-use building – has broadened the enterprise horizon for Oak Bay Kiwanians and their associated boards. The Pavilion Foundation supports the 122-bed, dementia-specializing Kiwanis Pavilion at 3034 Cedar Hill Rd., owned and operated by the Oak Bay Kiwanis Health Care Society.
After the foundation serves its final regular breakfast on April 7, and following two cleanup weekends by club members, regular Tea Room operations by Oak Bay Kiwanis and community volunteers will begin April 27 for the five-month summer season at Willows Park, beside Beach Drive in Oak Bay.
The Easter Sunday breakfast will be served March 31 from 9 a.m. to noon and includes a choice of two menus at $10 each.