Downtown Vancouver recently said goodbye to two of its pioneering restaurants, and they will be missed. But are their closures a warning sign, or merely a part of a normal life cycle of a healthy downtown?
Tommy Owens operated his Tommy O’s restaurant for more than 25 years, giving patrons a taste of the islands from the corner of Eighth and Washington streets. A few blocks away, the Jerusalem Cafe ended a 23-year run at 106 E. Evergreen Blvd.
Both restaurants continue to operate elsewhere — Tommy O’s at the Camas Hotel, Jerusalem Cafe on Chkalov Drive in east Vancouver — but their absence downtown brought an outpouring of thanks, nostalgia and regret.
“You have contributed so much to Vancouver and its Renaissance,” Tommy O’s patron Joanna Fitzwilson wrote on its Facebook page. “Tommy O’s is a modern landmark … We will miss you.”
We will too. It’s hard to overstate the difference between the Vancouver where they started and the city center of today. In the 1990s, downtown lurked in the shadows of an abandoned brewery. Main Street was lined with dilapidated storefronts that had emptied in the 1970s and ’80s, when the mall opened and the cardrooms were run out of town. There were few reasons to venture downtown after government offices closed at 5 p.m. on weekdays. Almost no one lived there.
Nowadays it’s harder to find a parking spot in the evening than during the middle of the day. Hundreds of apartments line the waterfront, Esther Short Park and the Mill Plain corridor. The city center is full of entertainment venues, ranging from the City Center Cinemas to Esther Short Park. Dozens of eating and drinking places with varied menus cater to a variety of tastes. Just try to get a seat in the bar at Amaro’s Table after work. Two decades ago, that space was a sandwich shop that wasn’t even open evenings.
So while it’s sad to be losing a couple of the downtown icons, it doesn’t seem likely that their closures are a bellwether of tougher times for the heart of Vancouver.
In his 2019 book “Burn the Ice,” author Kevin Alexander proclaims the years since the Great Recession ended have been the Golden Age of restaurants, and asserts that Portland was its epicenter. But Alexander also goes on to say that the Golden Age is dimming. So that may be in play here.
Running a restaurant has always been a tough business. There is a lot of competition, and customers’ tastes change and evolve. The overhead is low, the goods are perishable, and, right now, rising minimum wages are squeezing restaurateurs throughout the state.
It seems likely that all of these factors may have contributed to the demise of Jerusalem Cafe and Tommy O’s. Tommy Owens, the proprietor at Tommy O’s, said that increased competition, particularly from the upscale Waterfront Vancouver dining options, helped cement his decision to close.
But as we lament their closings we also realize that downtown has never been better. The Waterfront Vancouver has developed a new upscale dining and wine bar scene never before seen in Clark County, and the downtown core is lined with everything from bistros and taprooms to amazing Thai food and good barbecue. And a few of our old haunts, such as Little Italy’s Trattoria and Joe Brown’s Cafe, are still around.
Our city center continues to thrive. So pour one out for Tommy O’s and Jerusalem Cafe, but here’s to another round for downtown.
