Use the term “Downtown Eastside,” and people will conjure up a lot of images, most of them negative.
Entrepreneurship is not a term that comes to mind.
But two Downtown Eastside businesses, worlds apart in their structure, history and business plans, have invested in the future, looking to broaden their reach into not only their own community, but the city at large.
The century-old Patricia Hotel on East Hastings Street has, with the demise of The Jazz Cellar, become the city's premier jazz venue, a major gathering spot for music lovers not only during the current TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival, but throughout the year. Siblings Daryl and Lindsay Nelsen, who run the hotel business for father Wayne Nelsen, invested in a grand piano, new sound system, enlarged stage and improved lighting for Pat's Pub, where the best jazz groups in the city perform every Saturday afternoon and often on weekend evenings.
Vancouver Urban Winery (VUW), a few blocks northwest of the Patricia, is a two-year-old company that has invested $2.25 million into the 7,700-square-foot Settlement building on Dunlevy Street. It opened in 2012 as a wine tasting bar and packager-distributor of wines, its FreshTAP division using stainless steel kegs to distribute wine-on-tap products for almost 70 B.C. wineries. Six weeks ago, VUW opened an on-site restaurant, the Belgard Kitchen, and last week it started a beer operation, Postmark Brewing. It also plans to run a distillery.
“We have the licence for the distillery, but we don't have the money for it,” said Mike Macquisten, 31, who co-founded VUW with business partner Steve Thorp.
Macquisten and Thorp got the idea for a wine-on-tap business three years ago while touring the U.S. and seeing the popularity of wine on tap in bars there.
“We fell in love with the idea and looked at how we could bring that to our market, which has chef-driven restaurants and is a great grape-growing region,” said Macquisten.
The Belgard Kitchen, open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily, operates under chef Reuben Major. Postmark Brewing offers five original products: Dry Irish Stout, Red IPA, Pilsner, Saison and Raspberry Lemon-Zest Hefeweizen.
The moves made by the owners of Pat's Pub aren't as ambitious as Vancouver Urban Winery's, but they represent an investment in the future. Making improvements to the stage area, lighting and sound, paying the musicians properly for the Saturday afternoon shows (which are free to the public) and buying a second-hand Samick grand piano from a church in Richmond indicate a long-term commitment to the music program.
Before it added jazz, Pat's Pub's live music consisted of mostly indie rock bands, whose listeners are, in Daryl Nelsen's words, “a little more accepting” of the Downtown Eastside scene. The Saturday afternoon jazz shows, which began 18 months ago, took a while to gain a following but are now a success. The evening jazz shows still struggle, likely because some people are afraid to be in the area at night.
“I've worked at the front desk for 10 years, and I've never heard of any guests or staff having a problem,” said Lindsay Nelsen. “But that's something we know and not necessarily other people know. That perception [of danger] is a hurdle we have to get over.”
To accommodate the jazz crowd, Pat's Pub has added wine on tap to its menu.
In March, the City of Vancouver announced its 30-year Downtown Eastside Local Area Plan, which calls for a rise in the number of residential buildings in Strathcona. Neither the Nelsens nor Macquisten figured on this in their business strategy, but if that area plan comes to fruition it could increase their customer base.
The Nelsens say the emphasis should be on rejuvenation, not gentrification, of the area.
