SOME LIKE IT HOT  Matthew Larsen and Kersten Hopkins have opened The Hot Spot pizzeria at the location of Hopkins Harvest, and will be running it and the market year-round.  Photo submitted

SOME LIKE IT HOT Matthew Larsen and Kersten Hopkins have opened The Hot Spot pizzeria at the location of Hopkins Harvest, and will be running it and the market year-round.Photo submitted

The Hopkins family has been busy making some changes to their Hopkins Harvest business in Windermere. Hopkins Harvest now featuring The Hotspot has been renovated to operate as a year-round business for the first time ever this winter.

Its a family business and my (parents) are the owners, explained Kersten Hopkins, manager. My boyfriend and I are slowly taking it over.

Kersten and her boyfriend, Matthew Larsen, will be taking the reins from Fred and Shelley Hopkins and managing the business in the future. The duo marked the shift in management by hosting a soft opening for The Hot Spot at Hopkins Harvest between noon and 8 p.m. on Tuesday, December 1st.

Hopkins Harvest is now taking over the whole building (as Pizza Mercato has moved out). We are going to be doing wood-fired pizza and were opening up that side (for The Hot Spot), as well as re-opening the market to bring in all of our D Dutchmen Dairy products, Helmuts Sausage Kitchen meats, seafood and Olivias Oils, she explained.

There will be gift certificates sold on site, plenty of helping hands for new and returning customers, and a week-long grand opening with special sales and promotions starting today (Friday, December 4th) and running until Friday, December 11th.

Its one week of promoting ourselves, having cheap pizzas and a lot of Christmas gift ideas with our oils and our syrups, said Kersten. Well have our rotisserie chickens and were going to bring in some produce. For the grand opening, one week, well be open from noon until 8 p.m. every single day after that were going to weigh out our hours.

The shop will be tentatively closing for a few days after the grand opening to re-stock products, but those dates have yet to be determined.

Well promote any changes online through our Facebook page, she added. But with my parents slowly get out of the business, then my boyfriend and I slowly getting into the business, were going to have some new energy to keep it open year-round we just want to see it be a successful year-round business that appeals to locals.

There were some renovations completed at Hopkins Harvest before the grand opening to beautify the patio and highlight the pizzeria.

Weve actually done a whole bunch of changes to the inside (of the storefront) too, so its actually looking really good, said Kersten. We just want to let people know that were using fresh ingredients all of the products that we sell in the store on our pizzas.

And D Dutchmen Dairy products, she added, will be used to top the pizzas.

Its got Hopkins flavour now, she said with a chuckle. Its all under one roof now, which is good.

To reach the pizzeria, call The Hotspot at 778-526-5162 or visit the Hopkins Harvest featuring The Hot Spot page on Facebook.