Jim Sutherland - Earls the Cookbook: Eat a Little. Eat a Lot. 110 of Your Favorite Recipes

A cookbook, how about that? As the co-founders of Earls, were delighted to be able to share all of these wonderful recipes with you. And were happy to see so many stories from our first thirty-four years, as well as surprised that theyre so interestingwe thought we ran a pretty tight ship!

Its clear how lucky weve been to be surrounded by so many remarkable people along the way, so if we regret anything, its that between these covers there was room to feature so few. Every Earls is an intricate symphony of cleaners, dishwashers, bussers, cooks, hosts, servers, bartenders, chefs, managers and more, and the customer experience is entirely dependent on each of them. We have around seven thousand employees, and its possible that as many as a hundred thousand people have worked with us since we started in 1982. Please know that if you are one of those people, your contribution is very much appreciated.

And then theres this book. Our thanks to the team behind it for the detailed recipes, the beautiful pictures, and the words, however fantastical. Its been a slice, and we think thats well reflected. Now, lets eat.

Bus and Stan Fuller

Vancouver, 2016

Left to right: Jeff Fuller, Stewart Fuller, Clay Fuller, Leroy (Bus) Earl Fuller, Stanley Earl Fuller

As this cookbook is being written, Leroy Earl Bus Fuller is eighty-seven, looks sixty-seven, and with his gnarly beard, high-tops and red pants, dresses twenty-seven. Hes sitting on his back deck listening to some of the tall stories that others have been telling about him and dismissing them as lucky accidents of day-to-day existence. Bus is a born pragmatist whos so matter-of-fact about food, business and life that other people apparently feel compelled to embroider and philosophize on his behalf.

Thats something to keep in mind as you read the story of Earls, the restaurant empire that Bus and his sons and colleagues have built over the last thirty-five years. Was there near-cosmic insight involved in seeking out family wineries and craft brewers back in the 1980s? Journeying to France and Italy to stuff suitcases full of sausage and cheese in the same decade? Recognizing around the same time that those Asian cultures are also on to something pretty delicious? Agreeing on the virtues of fresh, local and seasonal in the early 1990s? Seeking out farmers and ranchers who could supply the quality and freshness of meat and vegetables necessary to follow through? Hiring Iron Chefs, molecularists and farm-to-table enthusiasts alike in the 2000s?

Or alternatively, as Bus would have itif hell have it at allmaybe all of these things just happened because someone gave them a shot, and customers proved to like them, so they stuck.

In this book weve tried to keep to the middle ground, retelling those stories but also angling toward the Bus point of view, which weve taken as having something to do with the randomness of life and the natural inclination of people to try to do the right thing and to have fun and better themselves while doing it.

Which, roughly speaking, is how Bus landed in the restaurant business in the first place. Although born in Cincinnati, he grew up in Montana, and in 1954 was employed as a machinist at a refinery in tiny Sunburst, near the Alberta border, when he and his first wife decided to open a restaurant. Three years later, when he applied for an A&W franchise, the closest one available was in Edmonton, Alberta. Well, drive-ins did well in the 1950s, as maybe youve heard, especially in boom towns like Edmonton. Soon Bus was operating several A&Ws there, and before long he bought a territory in British Columbia, moving the family to Vancouver in 1968. Through the 1970s he continued to pick up territories and also branched out with a sit-down chain, known as Fullers. By the early 1980s hed converted his holdings into a public company called Controlled Foods that operated well over one hundred restaurants.