Inside the 'middle of nowhere' Vancouver café named top place to eat in Canada by Yelp reviewers - Yahoo News Canada

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Jimmy Mah greets customers at the cafe in August 2019. (Matt Meuse/CBC - image credit)

"Our house is your house."  

That's the motto of Northern Cafe, which was recently named the top place to eat in Canada by review site Yelp.

The café, which sits on the banks of the Fraser River near the Knight Street Bridge in south Vancouver, is tucked away on top of a hardware store in the middle of a lumber yard.

A narrow staircase can be found at 1640 East Kent Ave. South that customers have been climbing for over 60 years so they can plop into red vinyl booths and dig into classic diner eats.

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The diner opened in 1949 to feed workers in the area. Jimmy Mah and his wife Connie took over the business in 2008.

The Mahs serve diner favourites like pancakes and burgers, as well as Asian cuisine including homemade wontons and barbecue pork.

"I love what I do," Mah says. "When I picked up this old diner ... there was no business at all."

The café is truly a family affair.

Son Raymond Mah worked as a chef in Vancouver for nearly two decades before coming over to help his parents. His brother Richard quit a digital marketing job in Japan to join the family business.

"We ain't about being fancy, it's all about no flair," Richard said, as a Little Richard song plays in the background. "We just want to serve good quality food, comfort food."

"It's all about giving love to the community and to all the guests that come here."

The Mahs aren't the only family connection to the café.

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The Thomas family opened Northern Building Supply over 60 years ago and the café was the brainchild of founder Bert Thomas, who wanted somewhere for his workers to eat near his lumber yard.

"He started it so they wouldn't leave all day," Bert's son John Thomas told CBC in 2019.

Nowadays, people come to the lumber yard to find food.

Raymond says it's flattering that many people, including travellers from around the world, seek out his family's café.

"Walking down here, you're not going to try and find a restaurant," he says.

It's even more flattering that people continue to leave positive online reviews.

"Being a family-owned, small, little restaurant here in the middle of nowhere, it definitely means a lot to be ranked number one in Canada."

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Grocery bagger by day, café crooner by night - KARE11.com

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Baker Bruno Tse rolls out popular café for mochi croissants - KABC-TV

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SAN FRANCISCO -- Chemist turned baker and business owner Bruno Tse rolls out creative and delicious baked goods through Rolling-Out Café. The popular spot is the home of the Mochissant along with sweet and savory offerings.

"I was a chemist, and I started watching a lot of cooking shows and baking shows on TV," explained Tse. "And I said to myself, 'That's probably something I can do.'"

Opening in 2011, Rolling-Out Café shares creative offerings, including his trademarked Mochissant, mango and sticky rice kouign amann, black sesame croissant, and more.

Tse harnesses his love for chemistry and inventing to develop innovative baked goods that quickly become customer fan-favorites.

"As an Asian American, I also bring in a lot of influence from my heritage and background as well," said Tse. "For example, croissants, something so classic and delicious already. I would ask myself, 'what can I do to it?' Make it my own."

Tse decided to incorporate mochi into the croissant dough lamination process, and the Mochissant was born. The melt-in-your-mouth croissant creation is one of the many menu items that keep customers coming back bite after bite.

"When I see customers come back to me and say this is the best quiche they ever had, or my meatloaf reminds them of their grandmother's, that really just touches my heart," said Tse. "Let me know that I'm doing something positive, making a little positive impact on people's lives."

For more information about Rolling-Out Café, please visit here and follow @rollingoutcafe on Instagram.

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Yellow Cafe Closes in Navy Yard, Adds Cocktails and Pizza in Georgetown - Washingtonian

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Yellow, a Levantine cafe, expands to evening hours in Georgetown with Lebanese wines, pizzas, and dips. Photography by Rey Lopez

When one door closes, another door opens for Levantine flatbreads and natural wines. At least that’s the way it goes for Albi chef Michael Rafidi, who closed his first Yellow Cafe in Navy Yard shortly after opening a new location in Georgetown. The latter, currently open during the daytime, will begin evening hours on Wednesday, February 15 with a new menu of snacks, “not pizzas,” Lebanese wines, and coffee cocktails. 

Pizzas like the margherita-inspired “Harissa Explains it All” can come with dips for dunking crusts. Photograph by Rey Lopez

The Navy Yard location, attached to Rafidi’s lauded Levantine restaurant Albi—#2 on our 100 Very Best Restaurants list—was always meant to be a temporary pop-up. But, over two years after opening, Rafidi says it was tough to cut off the line for wood-fired pita sandwiches.

“It’s really for the team, not to operate two restaurants in one. It’s just not a sustainable way to operate,” says Rafidi, who’s also in expansion mode with a huge Yellow cafe, test kitchen, and wood-fired kebab shop opening near Union Market next year. “It’s definitely going to come back in the Navy Yard, I just don’t know where.”

Pies are available to stay or go. Photograph by Rey Lopez.

In the meantime, diners can head to Georgetown during the day for a nearly identical menu of creative coffee drinks (go baklava latte), homemade pastries, and pita sandwiches. The nighttime offerings—available for dine-in and to-go—center around “not pizzas.” The rounds come from a wood-burning oven and are brushed with garlic, Lebanese olive oil, and za’atar. Fun toppings include “That’s Not a Shawarma Wrap” with spiced chicken, labne, and smoked mozz, or “Lamachun Lovers” with garlicky toum, Palestinian olives, and torn herbs. 

Rounding out the menu: dips for dunking crusts and mezze such as chermoula lamb ribs drizzled with smoked honey. Sweet tooth can indulge in halva chip cookies, or our Albi favorite, labne soft-serve. 

Check out the evening menu below:

Food Editor

Anna Spiegel covers the dining and drinking scene in her native DC. Prior to joining Washingtonian in 2010, she attended the French Culinary Institute and Columbia University’s MFA program in New York, and held various cooking and writing positions in NYC and in St. John, US Virgin Islands.

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Our Sympathies to the Restaurant Owner Who Named Cafe 'Woke' - The Takeout

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A new breakfast restaurant in Coventry, Connecticut, has found itself in the middle of some controversy, and it’s all because of its name. Woke Breakfast and Coffee (some of you can already see where this is going) has been boycotted by some members of the community and has been the target of negative social media comments, all because of the unintended connotations of the word “woke,” reports CT Insider.

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For those of you who haven’t read the news in years, the term “woke” has, over time, gained the widely acknowledged connotation of a person who is “aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice),” as defined by Merriam-Webster. Times being what they are, the term has been weaponized by those who think social justice is a cause worth sneering at rather than advancing.

The thing is, the restaurant’s name allegedly isn’t a nod to that meaning of “woke” at all. It’s simply a reference to waking up and having breakfast and a cup of coffee. It’s a name in the same breakfasty vein as other businesses, like Snooze Eatery, or Woken coffee, or Chicago’s Wake ’n Bacon.

In fact, owner Carmen Quiroga, who immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico, says she had no idea that the word was so loaded when she picked it as the name of her restaurant.

“I’m a Mexican,” Quiroga told CT Insider. “I don’t know anything about what ‘woke’ means to some people.”

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That fact hasn’t deterred people from being jackasses online, however. The administrator of The Coventry CT Citizen’s Open Forum, a local private Facebook page, has had to repeatedly delete inflammatory comments from residents about the cafe.

CT Insider published a Facebook post written last week by the admin of the group to its members:

If you are that close-minded that you can’t grasp that the name is referring to the fact that it is a breakfast establishment and nothing more, then just keep that to yourself and move on. It’s disgusting to read that residents are going to refuse to support a business that is trying to grow in our awesome little town because you don’t like what they’ve named it, without even knowing anything about how they chose that name. Just stop.

Thankfully, the boycott proposed by some residents doesn’t appear to be putting a dent in business: CT Insider reporter Jesse Leavenworth arrived to find the restaurant completely full on a recent visit. 

“I think they should hang a sign that says, ‘Idiot-free zone,’” one customer told CT Insider.

Last time I checked, nothing about a morning skillet with sunny side up eggs threatens to indoctrinate the person who eats it. But it’s 2023, and people are insistent upon finding things to be mad at, including restaurants, the best of which exist not only to feed people, but to foster a sense of community. If having a cup of coffee with some flapjacks is a radical political move, well, then consider me a revolutionary.

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Expensive taste? $150 cup of coffee offered at an Austin café - KXAN.com

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Conservatives rail against Conn. breakfast cafe called 'Woke' — puzzling owner - New York Post

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Wake up and smell the controversy.

A Connecticut breakfast joint owner christened her new eatery “Woke” after its morning food focus — but soon got served a big helping of complaints from conservative locals who didn’t like the name’s left-leaning connotation, Insider reported.

Carmen Quiroga opened the doors of Woke Breakfast & Coffee on Main Street in Coventry on Jan. 19 — and learned in an instant the name didn’t go over easy. 

“When we were thinking of an idea [for the name], we obviously wanted a word that would represent something related to morning,” she told Insider.

Quiroga picked “woke,” she explained, as a take on the phrase “wake up and have a coffee.” She also liked that the word included the letter “o,” which is represented by an egg yolk in the coffee shop’s logo.

Quiroga was not aware that the word was often used by conservatives to refer to liberal ideology.

“I’m a Mexican,” she told CT Insider. 

Woke Breakfast & Coffee opened on Jan. 19 in Coventry.

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“I don’t know anything about what ‘woke’ means to some people.”

Woke’s first days in business, however, were quickly overshadowed by conservative residents who took issue with the name. 

According to Insider, a debate about the title in the Coventry CT Citizen’s Open Forum, a private Facebook group, got so heated that moderator Tonya Landrie Ohlund threatened to remove the “ridiculous comments.”

“If you are that close-minded that you can’t grasp that the name is referring to the fact that it is a breakfast establishment and nothing more, then just keep that to yourself and move on,” Ohlund scolded the posters.

“It’s disgusting to read that residents are going to refuse to support a business that is trying to grow in our awesome little town because you don’t like what they’ve named it, without even knowing anything about how they chose that name. Just stop.”

Republican town council member John French told Insider that political divisions were common in the area.

The logo features an egg yolk in place of the “O.”

Woke

“It’s a very purple town,” he explained.

A survey by the Hartford Courant shows that just over 51 percent of Coventry residents voted for former Vice President Joe Biden in the 2020 election. Four years earlier, the town narrowly sided with Donald Trump.

Despite the murmurings online, Quiroga told the outlet that no one has said anything unsupportive to her face.

“We are very, very busy. We had to close an hour later because the people were waiting to try our food … Everybody said that the food is excellent. So we feel like, like we have good support from the town,”  she said.

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Food City Guest Restaurant Night features Greeko's Grill and Café - WCYB

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Food City Guest Restaurant Night features Greeko's Grill and Café  WCYB

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Tekashi 6ix9ine thrown out of Miami restaurant for giving patrons free booze - Page Six

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He turned up too hard.

Tekashi 6ix9ine and his entourage of about 20 people were kicked out of El Tiesto Cafe in Miami Sunday night for acting reckless, Page Six has exclusively learned.

We’re told the “Trollz” rapper, 26, went behind the bar without permission and began pouring bottles of tequila into patrons’ mouths for free.

Meanwhile, his friends were dancing on top of the bar, despite being told not to do so.

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Tekashi was kicked out for giving free tequila to patrons.

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Tekashi was kicked out for giving free tequila to patrons.

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At around 8:20 p.m. ET, Tekashi and his pals were escorted out of the Dominican-Japanese restaurant, but it appeared to be an amicable exit as he was seen hugging someone near the security stand.

“He’s friends with the owner,” a source tells Page Six exclusively. “He’s here all the time.”

Tekashi 6ix9ine was seen hugging an individual outside of El Tiesto Cafe in Miami after being thrown out.

After leaving the venue with a bodyguard and most of his friends in tow, Tekashi was seen walking toward his multicolored Rolls Royce, which is spray-painted red with yellow and purple splash marks, in the parking lot.

The “Mala” rapper stood outside the driver’s side door for a few minutes as about five friends surrounded him. He eventually got into vehicle with a female passenger in the front seat and a male passenger in the back seat, and took off.

Most of Tekashi’s friends left the establishment at the same time as him, but two pals remained inside, seated by the bar.

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Tekashi was seen getting into the driver’s seat of his flashy Rolls Royce after getting kicked out of the venue.

Tekashi was seen getting into the driver’s seat of his flashy Rolls Royce after getting kicked out of the venue.

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Tekashi was seen getting into the driver’s seat of his flashy Rolls Royce after getting kicked out of the venue.

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About 20 minutes after the “Stoopid” rapper left, a police officer arrived.

The male cop walked into the venue solo, looked around and spoke to a staff member before exiting.

Tekashi’s two friends, which had previously stayed behind, left at the same time as the officer. No arrests were made.

A spokesperson for the Miami Police department tells Page Six there was no record of the incident, but explains, “Businesses have the option of hiring an off-duty police officer who will handle any call for service if warranted.

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Miami police arrived about 20 minutes after Tekashi left.

Miami police arrived about 20 minutes after Tekashi left.

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“My only guess in this case is that the officer on scene may have been able to resolve the situation (if any) with staff, which might have not necessarily required any further action from officers if a crime was not committed.”

The rep concluded, “This may be the reason there isn’t any sort of call being located in the system.”

A rep for Tekashi and a manager at the El Tiesto Cafe could not immediately be reached for comment.

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A photo of the bar Tekashi got behind without permission.

A source tells Page Six the rapper’s friends were also seen dancing on top of it.

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Although he may have escaped any serious trouble this time, the “Gooba” rapper is no stranger to running into issues with the law.

In 2019, Tekashi – whose real name is Daniel Hernandez — was sentenced to two years in prison for racketeering conspiracy and eight other charges.

He previously faced 47 years in prison after admitting to joining the Nine Trey Bloods gang to help his career — and contributing to them financially – but received a lighter sentence for cooperating with prosecutors.

In April 2020, Tekashi was released early amid coronavirus concerns since he suffers from asthma. He was then sent to home confinement, which officially ended in August 2020.

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