| Type | Privately held company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Branded restaurants and airline services |
| Founded | 1883 |
| Founder(s) | Phelan family |
| Headquarters | Vaughan, Ontario, Canada |
| Key people | Don Robinson, President & CEO; M. Bernard Syron, Chairman |
| Employees | 40,000 |
| Divisions | Swiss Chalet, Kelsey's, Harvey's, Milestone's Bar & Grill, Montana's Cookhouse, Coza tuscan grill |
| Website | http://www.cara.com |
Cara Operations Limited is a Canadian company that provides catering services to airlines and operates several restaurant chains including: Harvey's, Swiss Chalet, Kelsey's, Milestones and Montana's. Its headquarters are in Vaughan, Ontario.[1] It was previously headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario.[2] The company moved to its new HQ in Nov 2008 in Vaughan, Ontario across from Vaughan Mill Shopping Mall.
In 2002, sales for the whole company were C$1.9 billion. 88% of the business comes from the restaurant services with the remaining 12% deriving from airline catering.
The name Cara was derived from the first two letters of each of the words "Canada Railway"; it is also an Irish word meaning "friend".
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In 1883, Canada Railway News Co. was founded. Cara began as a steamship company on the Niagara River in Ontario. It soon moved into the food business, catering to a boom in passenger rail traffic in Canada.
In the 1930s, Cara began offering catering services to the airlines. By 1951 it was serving about 1 500 meals a day.
In 1961 the company changed its name to Cara Operations Limited.
Cara was owned solely by the Phelan family from its inception in 1883 until it finally went public in 1968. At the time, its primary business was catering to the transportation sector (airline and rail meals), but it did operate a few 'no-name' restaurants and coffee shops in various office towers and airport terminals in Canada. Total sales of all the various operations was C$30 million in 1968.
In 1986 Cara provided services for Vancouver's Expo 86.
In 1999, Cara purchased Kelseys inc. from owner Paul Jeffrey, acquiring Montanas, Kelseys and the Outback(Canada). The rights to Outback steakhouse were owned in Canada by Cara, but it was sold back to Outback in the USA because of high food costs.[3]
On February 26, 2004, Cara went private.
In 2008, Cara was in the middle of a controversy when 3 employees were arrested at the Montreal-Trudeau airport in relation to a drug distribution network that used the planes for which Cara provided the catering.
Cara currently employs more than 38,000 people.
As of Nov. 8, 2010 [4] Gate Gourmet (GateGroup) having met all customary closing conditions acquired substantially all of the business assets of Cara Airline Solutions, Canada’s premier airline catering and logistics provider, from Cara Operations Limited. Before Nov 08, 2010 Cara controlled 85% of the Canadian airline market, providing meals for more than 60 of the world's major airlines including KLM, American Airlines, British Airways and Air Canada. Meals were prepared at Cara's nine flight kitchens located across Canada.
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