Eat Streets: New Westminster gets fresh life on Columbia Street

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Exploring the restaurants that bring Metro Vancouver neighbourhoods to life.

The Spaghetti Factory is still reeling in the masses, but many of New Westminster’s beloved old-time restaurants — the King Neptune, the Pacific Cafe, and the Royal City Cafe — are long gone.

But there is new life for diners on Columbia Street and the downtown New West core. A whole new crop of restaurants has emerged on the historic street, and in the New Westminster SkyTrain Station at 8th and Columbia.

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Yes, the SkyTrain station. A sign outside lists 19 restaurants in the three-storey complex, and they offer a lot of variety.

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There are standard fast-food chains like Tim Hortons, Subway and A&W, but there is also a blend of restaurants that reflect Metro Vancouver’s diversity.

Picnic K-street Korean food offers a bulgogi bibimbap rice bowl, which features thinly sliced beef and vegetables over rice, topped by an egg.

Alternatively, you could check out Brazilian pastels (handmade pies with a crunchy dough filled with beef and cheese, chicken or veggies) at WhataFood Brazilian Street Food.

The hot new addition, literally, is Big Way Hot Pot, a giant Chinese restaurant where customers build their own hot-pot dishes from 18 “special broths” and 100 “fresh and premium ingredients.”

Gordon Price loves it, for both the food and the vibe from the young demographic that goes there.

“They fill the place up pretty much through the day,” said the former Vancouver city councillor, who recently moved to the New West waterfront. “It’s hard to get in, so it’s got the energy. Feels great.”

On Columbia itself, there is El Santo (680 Columbia), a chic Mexican restaurant, and Piva (787 Columbia), a “modern Italian” fine-dining spot.

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Piva’s brand of modern Italian means customers can sample wild boar meatballs and spaghetti alongside traditional Italian fare like spaghetti Bolognese — albeit Bolognese that comes with beef and veal ragu and portobello mushrooms.

Price took a couple of “sophisticated foodie” friends there who live in Kits Point, and they were impressed, telling him “this tastes like genuine Italian” in Italy.

El Santo is a blend of modern and traditional Mexican food.

“Mexican cuisine is very diverse,” said El Santo owner Alejandro Diaz. “One of the things that we like to do is showcase food from different areas. But we try to do more like a contemporary take of the Mexican foods.”

Hence you get a “plato grande” dish for dinner like Pescado Relleno, which is roasted B.C. rockfish, braised vegetable stuffing, spruce tip and fennel salsa verde and homemade tortillas.

Or you can go for smaller fare at lunch like Tinca de Pollo, which is chipotle-braised Fraser Valley chicken with pickled vegetables.

“I’m from Mexico City,” said Diaz. “We try to do basically what we do at home. We make everything from scratch. We go to the producer, we try to use everything as local as possible.”

Jenni Hart runs Move Studio, which offers yoga and Pilates classes at 239 6th St. in New West. She says El Santo is a go-to spot both day and night as a restaurant and bar — they have a dizzying amount of tequila brands to sample.

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“I’m vegetarian, so I get the chile relleno, and the verduras tacos are awesome. Cornbread is to die for. But I do want to point out that they have a really dope breakfast or brunch.”

Hart lives in Queens Park, up the hill from Columbia, and likes to explore Columbia on foot with her husband on the weekend.

“We’ll walk down and just kind spend the night, going from one place to the next,” she said. “You can walk around and have a nice night out.”

Her fave nightspot is the Flapper Lounge, a “Prohibition-era cocktail bar celebrating Flapper Girls at 759 Carnarvon St.

“That place is super, super-fun for cocktails, and they have light eats,” she said.

It’s fun just walking down Columbia Street, which has a small-town feel unlike anywhere else in the Lower Mainland. New West residents might balk at the small-town description, though — the Royal City was incorporated in 1860, 26 years before Vancouver was.

Columbia is known for its handsome brick heritage buildings, which have resulted in a couple of interesting heritage conversions, including the Trapp Block, where a 20-storey condo tower rises behind an elegant six-storey terra cotta facade.

Retail on the street has long been dominated by bridal shops. But you can also find a bright safety vest at Workman Industrial (641 Columbia) or get a new look at Heartache Tattoo, upstairs at 607 Columbia.

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Columbia’s restaurants are concentrated in a few blocks from McKenzie to McInnes avenues, with a handful up a block on Carnarvon Street.

If you’re looking for a sandwich, there’s the Columbia Street Sandwich company (550 Columbia); and Big Star Sandwich Co. (664 Columbia). Gastronomia Italia (601 Columbia) also has sandwiches, along with great pizza slices and Italian deli goods.

The Delicia Cafe (656 Columbia) was packed on a recent visit, with patrons having coffee and trying out a selection of baked goods that look as beautiful as they taste. There’s also a Waves coffee (715 Columbia) on the main floor of the handsome seven-storey Westminster building.

If you haven’t been to New West in a while you may be surprised to find that the old Keg in the train station is now called Kelly Bryan’s, an Irish-themed restaurant and pub. That ugly old waterfront parkade on Front Street has been partly knocked down, opening up the view.

A pair of sparking new 43- and 53-storey towers by Bosa, Pier West, have risen on the waterfront. After almost five decades in Vancouver’s West End, Price bought in the smaller tower.

His view used to be of Lost Lagoon; now he looks at a very urban scene of a jumble of old brick buildings, glass highrises, the SkyTrain bridge, the new Stal̕əw̓asəm Bridge and the Fraser River.

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Businesses hope the opening of the Stal̕əw̓asəm Bridge and the Bosa Towers will spark more life downtown. Still, Columbia will probably never be like Robson Street or Yaletown in Vancouver. Columbia has more of a working class, community vibe, which El Santo’s Diaz loves.

“We have been here for 10 years.” he said. “(In Vancouver) there are so many people, and there are also so many new restaurants. It’s really difficult to just stay relevant in such a big city. In New West, we can be part of the community.”

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Eat Streets: What to know about this stretch of Columbia Street

Location: 500 to 800 blocks of Columbia Street, New Westminster

Number of restaurants and food options: 29

What are options for parking? There are parking metres on Columbia Street.

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.

Read about more of Metro Vancouver’s Eat Streets:

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• Eat Streets: A United Nations of cuisine on Vancouver’s Victoria Drive
• Eat Streets: Langley City’s one-way a hub of local food
• Eat Streets: Delta and Surrey unite over food on this stretch of Scott Road
• Eat Streets: Comfort food served Hong Kong-style at Richmond’s Empire Centre
• Eat Streets: There’s now a world of flavours on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive
• Eat Streets: North Vancouver’s Lower Lonsdale reinvented as a foodie destination
• Eat Streets: Where hippies used to gather on West 4th Avenue, foodies now flock for the old and the new

Bookmark THIS PAGE to read the latest instalment every Wednesday.

Then and now: New Westminster’s Columbia Street in pictures

jmackie@postmedia.ca

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