Everything Café

Advance your token to Everything Café, Sean Heather’s seventh property on the quickly evolving Gastown and Chinatown Monopoly board.

Mr. Heather has been working hard of late to keep up with his ratio of two restaurants for every offspring, and now that baby number four is on its way, he’s recently been spotted around Gastown scoping out potential locations for what could soon be the eighth property to add to his ever expanding brood.

Krista Campagna and her all-female crew greet me warmly as I arrive at the café on a sunny Friday afternoon in Vancouver’s Chinatown. Enter the Heather eateries’ Executive Chef, Lee Humphries, under the dark cloud of his native England’s miserable scoreless draw against Algeria earlier that afternoon. I skip the customary World Cup chit chat and enquire instead about Mike Vitow, for whom Everything Café’s Reuben sandwich has been named. His face lights up as he describes the process behind Vitow’s Beethoven’s Corned Beef, where, you guessed it, all he produces is corned beef. (I was also tipped off that if you order in advance, he sells his premium product once a month at Granville Island.)

Al dente macaroni salad in a rich roasted tomato dressing with spicy arugula balancing the gentle brine of the feta and black olives, dainty shreds of colourful cabbages and cilantro tossed with a peppery sesame dressing that hits you right at the back of your buds, golden nugget potatoes delicately coated with bright green onions flickering amongst grains of rustic Dijon… and these are just the side dishes!

Lunch is served from 11am until 3pm, where Chef Lee and his team have specialized in the art of the sandwich, delivering slight twists on each of the classics. Smoked trout, lettuce, and tomato jam make up the T.L.T., and the Grilled Cheese oozes provolone, brie and caramelized onions.

Good news! Those tasty beef brisket meatballs of Judas Goat fame strike again in the Meatball Sub, which begs the question… if Tintin can make an appearance at each of Heather’s eateries (he collects busts of the adventurous Belgian cartoon character), then why can’t those magnificent meatballs?

A modern, clean décor features round tabletops running the length of the dimpled red leather banquette while cool aqua tones radiate from the neon Everything Café sign overlooking the Intelligentsia-fuelled coffee bar. Designed and built by Tony “Furniture” Milliares of Ûrthwûrks, all the wood paneling used in the café is heritage, with original beams salvaged from the Wing Sang Rennie Gallery, the oldest building in Vancouver’s Chinatown.

So next time you need your early afternoon brisket meatball fix, you know just where to go.

Everything Cafe
75 East Pender Street | Vancouver
Open 11:30 to 3 p.m.