Shaun Hicks (Little Wolf, Okie Dokie): 20 Years Before His Own Kitchen
Twenty years is a long time to work in someone else's kitchen. Shaun Hicks did it anyway. He ran the ovens at Sugarbowl, built cocktail programs at Three Boars, opened Wishbone as its head bartender and general manager, and cooked at Hardware Grill, Culina, Woodwork, and La Petite Iza. Along the way, he assembled the largest sherry inventory in Edmonton. Then, in September 2023, he put his name on the door for the first time.
Little Wolf sits at 8424 109 Street NW in Garneau, in the space Three Boars left behind when COVID shuttered it in 2020. Forty-five seats. Open most evenings from 5 pm. Small plates that pull from everywhere and a drinks list that reflects two decades behind the bar.
Why Wait Two Decades?
Most chefs who open their own place do it in their thirties, riding momentum from a hot kitchen or a competition win. Hicks took a different route. He kept moving through Edmonton's best rooms, learning different roles each time: line cook, head chef, bartender, GM. By the time he signed a lease, he understood every part of the operation.
That patience shows up in the menu. Little Wolf isn't chasing a single cuisine or trend. The plates rotate constantly, drawing from Japanese, Middle Eastern, West African, and Spanish traditions. One week you might see za'atar-crusted focaccia on sumac-dusted hummus. The next, Korean fried cauliflower or sweet potato bravas with pickled limes. A West African peanut stew with spiced millet might share a table with chai-poached BC pears and coconut rice pudding.
The rotating menu is deliberate. It keeps the kitchen creative and the ingredient costs flexible. If something is abundant and cheap this week, it goes on the menu. If it's not, it doesn't. Most kitchens treat changing the menu with the season as a cost. Hicks treats it as the hedge.
Better guest experience. Bigger nights. $299. Once.
Vegetables as a Business Decision
Nearly half of Little Wolf's menu is vegan. That's not a wellness pitch. It's economics.
Hicks has talked openly about designing the menu around affordable raw ingredients: pulses, grains, seasonal vegetables. The kind of stuff that costs a fraction of what protein does but rewards technique. Fermentation and preservation stretch the season further, turning a surplus of one ingredient into something that carries flavour through months of Alberta winter, which is also the least glamorous way to stop throwing money in the bin.
The result is a 45-seat restaurant that can offer a full evening of small plates and cocktails without pricing out the neighbourhood. In a city where the cost of dining continues to climb, that's a meaningful choice. It also creates a menu that naturally accommodates dietary restrictions without needing a separate section or an apologetic asterisk.
The non-consensus position here: vegetable-forward isn't a sacrifice or a limitation. For an independent operator watching margins, it's one of the smartest structural decisions you can make. Protein costs swing wildly. A bag of lentils does not. Menu engineering usually gets framed as pricing and placement, but the decision that moves the most money happens earlier, when you choose what the plate is built from.
The Space as Inheritance
Three Boars was one of Edmonton's defining independent restaurants. When it closed, its Garneau space carried weight. Hicks knew the room from his two stints working there. He understood what it meant to the neighbourhood.
Taking over that space wasn't just a real estate decision. It was accepting a kind of inheritance, the expectation that 8424 109 Street would remain a place worth visiting. Hicks described the room plainly: the space had a magic to it, where you didn't have to leave Edmonton to get a global dining experience.
That framing captures something specific about what independents do for a neighbourhood. They make a place worth being. Three Boars did it for years. Little Wolf continues it with a different menu, a different energy, and the same 45 seats.
Monthly Vegan Dinners and the Food Bank
On the last Monday of each month, Little Wolf hosts a three-course vegan dinner. Tickets are $49 per person. Five dollars from each one goes to Edmonton's Food Bank. The menu changes monthly, built around whatever is fresh and in season.
This isn't a one-off charity event. It's built into the restaurant's operating rhythm. A separate event, hot dogs and Negronis, raised $1,200 for the Food Bank in a single evening, with staff donating their tips.
Community work like this doesn't always get covered in restaurant profiles. But it tells you something about how an operator thinks about their role in a neighbourhood. Hicks isn't just feeding Garneau. He's feeding Garneau's food bank, too.
A Second Venture: Okie Dokie
In December 2025, Hicks opened Okie Dokie at 7345 104 Street NW, a smokies and prepared goods shop in the Strathcona Junction spot where Modest Meats used to operate. Handmade sausage, pulled pork, burger patties, and more. Open Thursday to Sunday.
It's a different format entirely: retail and takeaway rather than dine-in. But it follows the same logic. Use technique to transform affordable ingredients into something worth seeking out. Run a tight operation. Stay open on your terms.
Two years from first-time owner to two-location operator. After 20 years of patience, Hicks isn't waiting around anymore.
What Other Operators Can Take From This
The pattern here is worth sitting with. Hicks didn't rush to open. He spent two decades learning every position in a restaurant, from the line to the bar to the floor. When he finally opened, he designed a menu built for financial resilience: vegetable-forward, fermentation-heavy, rotating to follow what's affordable.
That approach produces a restaurant that can weather ingredient price swings, attract a broad audience, and still feel exciting to cook in. Little Wolf landed on Air Canada's Best New Restaurants 2024 longlist alongside two other Edmonton spots, Bernadette's and Bar Henry. That recognition came from a restaurant built on lentils and fermented vegetables, not on expensive proteins and trendy imports.
Running an independent restaurant is a lifestyle commitment. The hours are absurd, the margins are thin, and the work never really stops. Hicks did it for other people for 20 years before doing it for himself. And when he did, he built something designed to last.
Sources: Taproot Edmonton, Air Canada Best New Restaurants 2024, Edmonton's Food Bank, Culinaire Magazine.
