Kate the Spice Lady closes café due to rent increase

By Daniel Brown
Sept. 21, 2018

Katherine Lee is still the Spice Lady, she just won’t be running her café anymore.

The café on St. Peters Road closed Sept. 12 due to a rent increase.

She will still work at her Farmers Market booth, Lee said.

“We had a real great five-year adventure. I learned incredible things, I made some amazing friends.”

She is looking for another place to reopen, she said.

“I’m going to take a few months to think about things.”

Katherine Lee holds her closed café’s sign inside her house on Sept. 19. Lee is using her house to store the café’s furniture and equipment for now. Daniel Brown photo.

The café was cozy, but it was hard to find. The parking lot scared people away because it wasn’t well maintained, especially in the winter, she said.

The building switched landlords since Lee started, and with rent increasing, the café wasn’t profitable anymore, she said.

People like her spices because she makes them in front of you, Lee said.

“Part of it is people knowing it’s fresh.”

Ann Thurlow was a café customer. She’d been going to the restaurant since it opened.

She’s going to miss it.

“It felt like going to a friends house for lunch, except your friends gave you a menu.”

Thurlow’s favourite menu item was the cooler noodles, she said.

“I don’t know why they’re called that, but woah. Delicious.”

Lee’s spices can be smelled through the bags they’re sold in because they’re so pungent, Thurlow said.

Lee wasn’t always the Spice Lady.

When she was about 19 or 20, she worked at a Lebanese restaurant. 

She was taught many things there, but she wanted to know more about spices.

“How do I make this delicious thing?” she asked one day.

“We can’t tell you, it’s a family recipe,” came the reply.

She had to find out for herself. She read a book, which taught her how to make spices. She learned some people made them for a living.

“No one teaches you about that in school.”

Lee had fun making spices, including some no one else on P.E.I. was making. Finally she decided to start a business at the Charlottetown Farmers Market.

She was put on a waiting list. She figured it’d take a while, and once there was a booth for her, she’d have three months to prepare. 

Instead, they told her she had a week.

The Spice Lady was born.

Lee has been at the Farmers Market for 10 years, operating as Kate the Spice Lady.

Her spice blends are ground fresh once a week. Lee also makes custom blends, which no one else on P.E.I. does.

“I can make you what you want.”

One of her blends, the Sweetest Spice, is very popular. It’s great with chai tea and lattes, consisting of vanilla cane sugar, coconut palm sugar and cinnamon.

Five years ago, she opened her café under the same name. The menu used Lee’s spices, and acted as a spice gift shop.

The café was a family affair. Lee’s husband, chef Simon Pullan, prepared the menu.

Her son, Taryn Pullan, spent a lot of time at the café.

The Grade 9 student helped attract customers to the café and sweep the floors. His favourite parts of the café were the customers and the food, he said.

“The food was very well made and well prepared.”

Asked if he was saying that because his mother was standing beside him, Pullan said no.

“I actually mean that.”