Exploring the restaurants that bring Metro Vancouver neighbourhoods to life.
In Central Lonsdale, the longtime commercial hub of North Vancouver, restaurants are more plentiful and stacked closer together than a fully loaded club sandwich.
Postmedia News counted at least 90 food spots along Lonsdale Avenue in the dozen blocks between Keith Road and 23rd Avenue, with menus hailing from a minimum of 18 countries or regions around the world.
“There are so many restaurants on one street,” local resident Karen Hilton said as she walked along the strip. “Literally every block has some sort of food service … It’s endless.”
She points out some of her regular haunts: Red Chilli for the ginger beef, Pegsters coffee for the “light and fluffy” scones, Hachi Hana for the “really good” Japanese dishes, and Palki’s buffet where Hilton and her husband can try small portions of several Indian dishes. Her daughter frequents Kolbeh for the kebabs.
Many of the restaurants are locally owned, bearing signs announcing the decades they’ve operated in Central Lonsdale — historically North Vancouver’s main dining and retail corridor, while Lower Lonsdale was dominated by industrial shipbuilding. But with that industry’s decline, the city’s Shipyards District has been reborn as a funky waterfront neighbourhood, bustling with restaurants and the waft of trendiness.
Even though Central Lonsdale offers nearly twice as many places to eat, there is a sense among proprietors here that they’re increasingly competing with the upstart Shipyards area for customers’ limited disposable income.
“Things have changed but we are doing everything we can to keep our business afloat,” said Mike Rakis Sr., owner of Jack Lonsdale’s Public House.
His passion is a generational affair. Rakis’s father opened an Italian restaurant, Picasso’s, on Lonsdale in 1973. He turned it into Jack’s in 1988, and today his three adult sons help him operate the attractive, renovated space. They bring customers in by airing sports games, with popular public-speaking events, and with happy hour offerings like $10 pineapple flame margaritas. Rakis also supports the other businesses in the ‘hood by buying local: burger meat from a North Vancouver butcher, beer from nearby microbreweries and vegetables from a market across the road.
While Jack’s has been around for nearly four decades, just up the street Burger Zoghali opened just two years ago, specializing in Persian-style and Italian pizzas cooked in a wood-burning oven. It, like many other nearby establishments, is decked out in soccer decorations to lure customers to the neighbourhood to watch World Cup games.
“(We) help each other to make a business here on Lonsdale,” said manager Kia Ebrahimkhani. “When customers go to Lonsdale to another restaurant, then they are going to see us and try us.”
The City of North Vancouver has installed “parklets” — covered platforms with seating, built on former parking space — along the foodie avenue.
Not all eateries on the densely packed street, though, have survived. Brown’s Social House just closed, but a sign says a Nova Kitchen and Bar is to open in the space. And there is still an empty storefront where the Take Five coffee shop used to be. But many others appear to be thriving.
Ramen Danbo has a roped-off area for lineups and is packed on a recent weekday afternoon. The Eighties Restaurant, described as serving “breakfast and nostalgia since the ’80s,” is a local institution. Nickel’s Bakery, which sells Eastern European goodies, has been on the street for 65 years. Akbar Joojeh has two brightly coloured locations on Lonsdale, just blocks apart — two of the many Persian food operations to serve the North Shore’s large Persian population.
Hilton’s all-time favourite place to dine is Bravo Cucina, an Italian restaurant her family walked to 14 years ago to celebrate buying a property in Central Lonsdale. “We’ve come back ever since,” she said. “When we go out for dinner, this is our go-to.”
Inside, white linen covers the tables, a painted border of lemons and vines dances around the room, artwork nods to the menu’s Italian roots and regulars dine on a large table by a floor-to-ceiling wine rack. She and her husband usually share a caesar salad, before she often orders the Linguine della casa, while he prefers the Linguine pescatore.
During a recent lunch, Hilton and a Postmedia reporter had the Capesante e gamberi (scallops and prawns) cooked in a delicious mushroom Chardonnay citrus sauce, served with market vegetables. And for dessert, a yummy creme brulée with diced raspberries.
Co-owner Trevor Whitman said customers return for the reliable culinary skills of the main chef, who has been at Bravo Cucina for 30 years, and for the specials, which last week included mussels steamed in a coconut milk broth with mild yellow curry. His biggest challenge in the past few years has been food costs, with olive oil, cream and beef doubling in price, forcing the restaurant to marginally raise its prices for the first time since 2019.
“We really didn’t want to do it, but we had no choice,” Whitman said. “Restaurants operate on small margins.”
Bravo Cucina opened in 1996. In 2023, Whitman and three other veteran employees bought it from the original owner. Over those three decades, the population of Central Lonsdale has grown, with the addition of highrises and multi-family developments, and Whitman says many of their patrons are local residents. And most of the restaurant’s staff have been there for a long time. Two of the most recent arrivals are 18-year-old twins.
“We try to create a community feel to it. We know most of the people that come in, if not by name, by face recognition, and it’s kind of like an extended family in North Vancouver,” he said.
Eat Streets: What to know about Central Lonsdale
Location: Lonsdale Avenue between Keith Road and 23rd Avenue.
Number of restaurants and food options: 90.
What are the options for parking? Metered street parking from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
What are Metro Vancouver’s Eat Streets?
This article is part one of a series highlighting Metro Vancouver’s must-visit Eat Streets. With the goal of celebrating — and maybe even introducing you to — stretches of community around the region that have a notable concentration of local food businesses. Know of a great Eat Street in your community? Let us know where. Email us at artslife@vancouversun.com.
