“Why retire? I’d rather make soup!” Jackie Longmire laughs.

In the dead of winter, on January 3^rd, 2015, Jackie opened The Crow’s Nest, a restaurant in the small community of Hillsburn in Annapolis County. A year later, she opened a second location on the waterfront in Digby.

After retiring as manager of a drugstore, it wasn’t long before she was looking for her next adventure.

“I enjoyed retirement at first – in the summer, I was gardening,” Jackie explains. But then her daughter graduated from the tourism and hospitality program at NSCC. Jackie decided to run a restaurant, a place where she could work back of house and her daughter could be front of house.

In the Fall of 2015, Jackie reached out to CBDC Digby-Clare for a loan to purchase their second location in Digby.

“They were great – everything went smoothly with CBDC,” Jackie remembers.

Working seven days a week, she does a little bit of everything between the two locations – including ingredient prep in the kitchen, designing menus, writing up the menu boards, picking up fresh fish in Digby 2-3 times a week, and filling in when staff call in sick. In the evenings, Jackie focuses on payroll and admin work.

There are 15 staff members on the Hillsburn team and 23 staff at the Digby location. Jackie says she couldn’t do what she does every day without her fantastic staff.

CBDC Digby Clare Business Advisor Ryan Robicheau reflects “Jackie and her team at Crow’s Nest Too provide quality food that locals and tourists love. The restaurant industry can be a difficult one, but Jackie’s success is well-earned!”

“It became my mission to find a location with a view,” Jackie says of the Digby location of The Crow’s Nest. “As soon as I walked through the door, I knew it was the place – because we come from a fishing family and that waterfront view is what we were looking for.”

The menu features fresh seafood and homemade style dishes. Their seafood chowder is a particularly popular dish – their Digby location will often sell three to four pots a day. They even offer an indulgent lobster poutine, as well as haddock, fish burgers and hamburgers.

Future plans for Jackie are to keep doing what she’s doing – and she wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

“I love it. I just do. I can’t explain it,” Jackie muses. “Honestly, I don’t know what I’d be doing with myself if I wasn’t doing this.”