‘A hidden gem in the city’: Vancouver’s Bayside Lounge turns 45

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The Bayside Lounge opened in 1979 in a second-floor space connected to the Best Western Sands hotel at 1755 Davie St. in downtown Vancouver.

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The venerable 92-person capacity bar turns 45 this year. To celebrate its nearly half-century in operation, the room is getting a tony new facelift that nods back to its early beginnings and its future.

With an uninterrupted view of English Bay and the hustle and bustle of Denman Street in Vancouver’s densely populated West End going on below, the establishment quickly gained a dedicated following. It was a very different kind of hotel bar.

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A very ’70s Vancouver

This wasn’t just due to the cool-but-cosy decor. Establishments such as the Waldorf Hotel’s Tiki Room and others had some pretty flash designs. But the Bayside boasted telephones on every table. How ’70s is that?

Connecting to other patrons was just a dial away.

From its swivelling clamshell chairs and tightly-placed outer rim tables to the circular central bar and wedge-shaped entryway, the lounge looked like something straight out of an Our Man Flint film. Fun was clearly on the menu.

Owner Craig Prystay was 22 years old when he took on the role of GM for the establishment.

“My previous bartending experience before that had been at Hy’s at the Sands, which was the original Hy’s location,” he said. “It was very much the rye-and-coke and traditional restaurant-style of drink service, and then you would go upstairs and we were serving punch bowls for two that took up the table. The idea behind the phones at every table was that you could phone your babysitter to let them know you might be a little later, or to call you buddies and tell them to get down to the Bayside Lounge.”

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“We never thought about people phoning the other tables, which they certainly did.”

A drink on the Love Boat

Being elevated above the ground-level gives the Bayside Lounge a feeling of floating over the view rather than being tied into it. The original designers recognized this unique feature and ran with it.

“The idea was one of sitting in the lounge of a cruise ship looking out at the bay,” said Prystay. “The amazing thing was how it worked, because when you are sitting there looking out, you never seem to see the electrical lines for the buses. But every time we took a photo, that was all you could see.”

With the ship setting sale into a very different Vancouver nightlife at the time, the second-floor setting proved challenging.

“People walk by, so it’s not a good thing anywhere to have a restaurant or bar on the second floor,” he said. “Then there is the whole, ‘It’s raining, I’m not going out’ thing, which challenges all establishments in Vancouver. Having the hotel to support us through the tough months really helps.”

The 45th anniversary upgrades

Even today, Vancouver has yet to embrace the upper-level lounges, high-end dining establishments that are common in Hong Kong or Tokyo. With its long-established location, the Bayside Lounge bucks the trend.

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Current general manager Dallas Worthington says recognizing the unique character of the space went into the upgrades completed in November.

“We put new carpet and a few things in about 10 years ago, but now we’ve gone back to embrace that 1979 opening vibe as the retro-’70s thing is coming back,” he said. “The new chairs will be a yellow similar to the bar, with a lot more neutral, upscale colours and some unique features such as the new mural and photo collage near the entrance. Of course, we didn’t change the bar shape or location as it’s a timeless feature.”

Marketing manager Alfie Wheelhouse, who hails from the U.K., arrived in the Bayside two years ago. Coming from a country where local watering holes have histories stretching back centuries, he appreciates the room’s relationship to both the West End community and entertainment history of Vancouver.

“Hearing about all the fun stories from the regulars who have been coming here for 10, 20 years-plus, that I started to understand how iconic the place really is,” he said. “Second-story bars are still so rare that I’ve brought friends who are new to the city down here and they are immediately asking, ‘When can we go back?’ This is really a hidden gem in the city.”

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To be fair, it’s not that hidden.

Weekend lineups are commonplace, and the mid-week can get lively at Throwback Thursdays with DJ Darvish and other calendar events. Happy Hour — which runs Monday to Friday, noon until 6 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. — includes an accompanying Appy Hour that features everything from Tuna Kinilaw (Filipino-style ceviche) for $11, to Mexican elote corn grilled on the cob, $9.

“We did start to get some real notoriety back in the 2021 or so when we were named the number-two cocktail bar in Condé Nast Traveler,” said Worthington. “We are seeing an upward trend since, in terms of being recognized for our cocktails as well as the view, and other classic features.”

Among those, a tableside phone to remind patrons of a different era.

sderdeyn@postmedia.com

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