On June 13, 1892, Vancouver was a mere six years old with a population of 16,000. Entrepreneurs flocked to the Terminal City seeking fortunes, including Percy Venables, who opened Vancouver's first spa on June 11, 1892. However, it wasn't a traditional spa but The Spa Cafe, intended as a place of relaxation and refinement in the rough streets of Gastown.
The Spa Cafe Opens
An ad in the Vancouver World declared: "TO THE LADIES OF VANCOUVER, I have the pleasure of announcing to you that THE SPA CAFE will opened for business about June 11th. Our style is something new and original in Vancouver and will surely please you." The cafe specialized in afternoon teas, delicious ice cream, ice cream soda, water ices, fresh French candies, and frozen oysters. It promised cut flowers in profusion and a private parlour for ladies. The ad also boasted "no water in our milk" and "no Chinese employed," reflecting the anti-Asian racism of the time.
The cafe was located at 168 Cordova, the southeast corner of Cambie, where the Cambie Hotel stands today. Customers could telephone 426 to order a quart of French ice cream for dinner at 75 cents per quart. The Spa Cafe gained a reputation for serving dainty diners, hosting a Christmas dinner for 60 patrons with a menu ranging from boiled ox tongue to roast turkey.
Venables Moves to the Cosmopolitan Hotel
On March 9, 1894, the World reported that Venables had moved to the Cosmopolitan Hotel dining room and closed the Spa. The Cosmopolitan, at 77 Cordova (northeast corner of Abbott), was infamous as a centre of vice and moral depravity. The two-storey building was owned by Jackson T. Abray, Vancouver's first police constable in 1886. Before becoming a cop, Abray ran the Palace Hotel, destroyed in the Great Fire of June 13, 1886.
In 1907, Abray told The Province that he persuaded Malcolm MacLean to run for mayor in 1886, helping him win a contested election. After his hotel burned, MacLean hired Abray as a constable. Abray served until 1889, then took over the Cosmopolitan, which functioned more as a saloon. On May 9, 1906, moral reformers led by future Conservative MP H.H. Stephens objected to Abray's liquor license, calling the Cosmopolitan a rendezvous of thugs, thieves, rogues, and women of ill fame.
