The McCrae Family, est. 1998
A lakeside pub the Coppermine has called its own for twenty-seven years.
On the edge of the Coppermine since 1998 — twenty-four Canadian craft lines, a wood-fired hearth, and a heated patio where the same families keep coming back, year after year.
Our Story
From a single lakeside tavern to a 38‑staff gastropub — held by the same family, all twenty‑seven years.
In the spring of 1998, the McCrae family opened a small tavern on the edge of the Coppermine. The building had been a tackle shop the year before. There were nine tables, a single pizza oven borrowed from a friend in Sudbury, and a hand-painted sign over the door.
The first night they served forty-six covers. The wood came out a little charred. The beer was very cold. People came back anyway — and they have, every year since, through renovations that doubled the dining room, the addition of a wood-fired stone hearth in 2019, and most recently, a covered, year-round lakeside patio.
Twenty-seven years on, the McCrae family still owns the pub. Twenty-seven years on, the team has grown to thirty-eight — including four Red Seal chefs and a Cicerone-certified beer director — and over 1,400 private events have been hosted in the dining room and on the patio since 2008. We close for one day a year. The rest of the time, the door is the same door.
- Founded
- 1998, by the McCrae family
- Continuously operated
- 27 years under original family ownership
- Private events hosted
- 1,400+ since 2008
- Closed
- One day a year — Christmas Day
Meet the Team
Thirty-eight people. Four Red Seal chefs. One Cicerone. One very long ingredient list.
A pub is the sum of the people who show up before the doors open. These are the cooks, the pourers, and the talent buyer who keep the draught board turning and the hearth at 480°C, six nights a week.
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Head Chef & Owner
Daniel McCrae
The youngest of the founding McCrae family. Red Seal since 2007. Built the wood-fired hearth in 2019 around a single conviction: pizza should cook in ninety seconds, not ten minutes.
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Sous Chef
Maren Pelletier
Joined the kitchen in 2014 after eight years on the line at a Northern Ontario lodge. Owns the daily local supplier list — the one that keeps the kitchen at 71% local, audited by Foodland Ontario in 2022.
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Beer Director
Jonas Whitecloud
Cicerone-certified since 2018 and the person behind the quarterly rotation of the twenty-four lines. The largest selection between Thunder Bay and Sault Ste. Marie, verified by Beer Canada's 2023 regional audit.
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Hearth Chef
Adaeze Okafor
Red Seal pastry chef who rebuilt our dough program from scratch after the stone hearth was installed. The ninety-second bake is hers — and so is the Thursday-night sourdough focaccia that never quite makes it to the menu.
A Sourcing Philosophy
Why seventy-one percent of what we serve comes from within 150 kilometres.
There is a version of running a kitchen in Northern Ontario where the produce shelves are full of things that travelled a thousand kilometres to get here. We have run the other version for a long time.
In 2022, Foodland Ontario audited our ingredient books. Seventy-one percent of what we put on plates and on the wood-fired hearth that year was grown, raised, caught, milled, or smoked by producers within 150 kilometres of the Coppermine. The flour is milled an hour north of us. The mozzarella is pulled the morning it arrives. The smoked trout on the pizza comes from a smokehouse on the next bay. The maple in the carrot cake comes from a sugar bush our server's family has run since 1968.
We don't believe that 100% is the right number — coffee, citrus, a few things in the spice rack — are simply not grown here, and pretending otherwise would be a kind of dishonesty. The 71% number isn't a marketing line. It is what we have actually, auditedly, done for years, and it is what we expect to keep doing. Every quarter we sit down with the same list of suppliers and the same list of what they can carry us through. The menu follows the land, not the other way around.
If you sat at the bar one Saturday in October and ordered a pizza and a glass of cold lager, the odds are that almost every part of that meal was grown, raised, or brewed somewhere you could drive to before dessert.
— The Coppermine kitchen, audited by Foodland Ontario, 2022
By the Numbers
Twenty-seven years of locals-first hospitality — at a glance.
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27
years
Continuously operated under the McCrae family, since 1998.
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24
draught lines
Rotated quarterly. The largest selection between Thunder Bay and Sault Ste. Marie (Beer Canada, 2023).
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71
% local
Of our ingredients sourced from farms and producers within 150 km — audited by Foodland Ontario, 2022.
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1,400
private events
Hosted in our dining room and on the patio since 2008.
-
38
staff
Including four Red Seal chefs and a Cicerone-certified beer director.
-
364
days a year
The pub is open. We close only on Christmas Day.
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4.7
average rating
Across 2,180+ Google reviews from diners across the Coppermine region.
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480C
at the hearth
The stone wood-fired hearth installed in 2019. Pizza, in ninety seconds.
Featured in Northern Ontario Travel · Top 10 Roadside Pubs · 2024 Amber Augustine · Where to Drink Craft Beer in Canada · 2021
Come Sit With Us
Reserve a table on the heated lakeside patio — or in the dining room — for this week.
We hold a handful of tables for walk-ins every evening, but weekends on the patio tend to fill by Thursday. If you have a date in mind, the easiest thing to do is book now.
- Hours
- Mon–Thu · 11am–10pm
Fri–Sun · 11am–11pm
Closed only on Christmas Day - Address
- 1842 Lakeshore Drive
Coppermine, ON P0L 1C0 - By Phone
- +1 (705) 555-0142
[email protected]