By Glen Korstrom
Former Lumicre executive chef Dale Mackay has secured a bank loan and is pumping about $100,000 of his own money into a venture that will provide employment for many former co-workers.
Mackay and a silent partner plan to open ensemble restaurant at the corner of Thurlow and Smithe streets in mid-May. Virtually all of his 25 staff will be former Lumicre employees.
Some differences between ensemble and Lumicre, which closed March 13, will be that ensemble will:
- be in a denser area and a higher traffic location;
- have entrées that range up to $25 instead of $40;
- have wines priced up to $400 instead of $2,500; and
- have 70 dining room seats compared with 48 at Lumicre.
“The front of the house will definitely be way more casual – much hipper and funner. It will have a totally different vibe,” said 31-year-old Mackay. “I love the location. Thurlow and Robson is one of the busiest retail corners in Vancouver and probably all of Canada. We’re 50 paces from that.”
The location has had problems, however.
It was known for decades as Piccolo Mondo before Stephane Meyer and wife Nathalie bought the restaurant and rechristened it Saveur in late 2004.
André McGillivray and Steve Da Cruz finally opened corner suite bistro de luxe in the space in February 2010 after they delayed several planned opening launches and lost celebrity chef Anthony Sedlak as a partner.
A short initial lease and an unexpected lease rate hike was one of the reported reasons for that bistro’s sudden New Year’s Eve closure.
“I’ve got a longer lease,” Mackay said. “For a restaurant, you don’t want anything less than five years.”
Mackay is competing in the Food Network’s 13-episode Top Chef Canada reality competition that launches April 11. His venture will get a shot in the arm if he wins the top prize: $100,000 and a General Electric monogrammed kitchen worth $30,000.
Before Canada Line construction rattled Thai Away Enterprises Inc. president Dale Dubberley’s bottom line, the Vancouver entrepreneur had three locations.
She shuttered her Davie Street Thai Away Home location last week, leaving a single location on Cambie Street, but that retrenchment is not a sign that business is bad.
“It looks like we’re shrinking, but, in fact, we’re positioning ourselves to grow,” Dubberley told Business In Vancouver on March 16. “We’re changing our restaurant model.”
Sales for Thai Away’s sauces and pre-made meals have grown exponentially and are now available in the U.S., via grocery delivery company SPUD, and in 70 B.C. grocery stores such as Save-On-Foods and Choices Markets.
Dubberley plans to start selling franchises for an as-yet unnamed venture that she said would be “the Subway of Thai food.” Franchise fee details are also yet to come.
The smaller Thai-wrap eateries will be cheap for franchisees to operate because they won’t require the expensive ventilation systems that were in Dubberley’s now-closed restaurants. Nor will they require Thai chefs. The locations would also be a new revenue stream for Thai Away’s products.
Vancouver’s first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)-registered Starbucks opened last week at the corner of West Hastings and Howe streets.
It’s not LEED-certified, however. Being LEED-registered simply means that Starbucks Corp. (SBUX:Nasdaq) has paid a fee to the United States Green Building Council (USGBC)and has agreed to start the process to become LEED certified, according to USGBC communications manager Ashley Katz.
The American coffee giant aims for all new corporately operated stores to be LEED-registered, its director of store development for Western Canada, Chuck Neufeld, told BIV. He declined to reveal how much extra the company intends to spend for new cafés to get LEED registration or eventual LEED certification.
“Green design and construction can sometimes be more costly up front,” he said, “[but] we believe it can provide long-term savings in operational costs, for example, through water and energy conservation.”
MAC Marketing Solutions principal Cameron McNeill told BIV that consumers will only pay more for LEED-certified homes if they get future savings (see “Consumers will pay for design innovation if it results in a good return on their investment” – issue 1115; March 8-14). He added that consumers will pay more for properties that are more energy efficient, regardless of whether they’re LEED certified.