holidays

I thought it would be a good time to mention that we are closed on Christmas day - but that's it.
We've also got a solid New Year's eve planned, and will be open on the 1st (it's a Friday after all).
Well that's it, I'm off to finish my shopping.
Happy Holidays to you and yours!

pet peaves - updated

Well the all time one is people is who spell Caesar - CEasar- , but my new current fav is people who believe they will entice me to take their group by stating things like
- we drink alot! or
- we want a place to come down and have a few appies and lots of drinks!
This, to a restaurant owner, translates roughly to "We will certainly help your place appear to be breaking the B.C. Liquor Laws, and we don't understand that a restaurant is not a bar!"
How about no to you and your knucklehead friends?

A lady reminded me of my ULTIMATE one tonight.
Walking in the back door of the restaurant like you know somebody.
NO ONE is welcome to walkthrough the backdoor. Reminder to the lady tonight - you are NOT a VIP, in fact nobody even knew who you were which effectively makes you a nobody.
Walk around.

Food Primary Licence

it's been awhile my friends

It's certainly been a busy month, and we are still kinda nuts with another 2 parties of 25 this weekend!
What else can I tell you?
New keg room is finished, which means even more beer on tap.
Smoke shed done this week, so the smoker now will have a permanent home.
Nick has officially started his apprenticeship here - nice one Mr.Smith.

Jeff and I are having our birthday gong show next weekend, and I'm a little nervous..not gonna lie.

This isn't set in stone, but the word on the street is that the chain restaurant that came after us for trademark infringement is going to have to close due to copyright infringment. Karma is a bitch.

That's it for today's update..

Winemaker's dinner

A 4 course dinner with 2 fantastic winemakers!

a new look and a new day

You may have noticed that I have recently made some aesthetic changes to our website, blog etc.
It turns out that a local restaurant group has trademarked the term "socialhouse", so we have been advised that we can no longer identify ourselves as a social house.
Alas.
So we are returning to our original moniker "The District".

No more lunches

After much debate and months of holding off - we have decided to discontinue weekday lunch service altogether.
We are absolutely positively still serving weekend brunches -so don't despair - the weekdays just weren't what we needed them to be.

I love rain+landscaping

Just putting the finishing touches on the back of the building. Painted, cleaned up and now landscaped. What a difference.
Now off for two hours of crossfit and MMA. Woot woot

Eat BC!

On October 1st we're going to be starting our Eat BC menu, which runs the whole month.

menus

Should be fun!

hartstikke bedankt

Just wanted to say thanks again to Vega for coming down and helping to re-do the sound down at the district.
Look for him and his dj crew to throw it around on Fridays and Saturdays from 10pm-1am.

campagnolo

Went down and checked out Conde Nasts' pick for best restaurant in Canada tonight.
Definitely worth the walk on the wild side aka. the east side of Main street just before Terminal Ave.
If you can find the Ivanhoe Hotel, then you can find Campagnolo.
Lovely decor, exceptional service ( thanks Amanda ) and a solid rustic menu inspired by the Piedmont and Emiglia-Romagna regions of Italy, it will certainly not make you feel like you're eating in East Van..and if you're own with continuing your "european" escape through the eastern boroughs, check out Le Faux Bourgeois at Fraser and Kingsway for a classic French treat.
Lovely meals at both places, which always makes me a happy camper ( and no I am not going camping for the Labor Day weekend )

armchair critic

Sara just told me a funny story. She had a lady come in last night and order 5 things off the menu, eat them all, and then offer her opinions on how we should change each one of those dishes. Really?! Who does that?
Even if you were a chef or a restaurant manager ( which you obviously aren't) nobody asked you!
Do you find yourself going into a coffee shop and telling them they should roast their beans differently? Or buy some flowers and then tell the clerk that they should have been grown differently?
Lady here's my tip to you - those who can DO, those who can't delude themselves into thinking their "considered" opinions matter to professionals. Try Cactus Club next time.
Now excuse me while I go back to making duck prosciutto - from scratch.

pink salt

If all goes my way, we will have another building permit tomorrow to send off to Victoria for Liquor Board approval. For what you may ask? Well for an extended patio. Yes. Yes indeed.
Next week we are launching the new menus with about 8 new dishes for you to try. New benny, new mussels, new salad, a few new desserts, new appies. I am excited.
But my big mission is to find pink salt aka Prague Powder #1. And it is goddamn near impossible to find.
I have to go to deep Langley to get it. So that I can start to make my own Charcuterie. mmmmmmmmm. Smoked buffalo bresaola. Lavender Saucisson.

well hello there

So we have un-officially opened the expansion. I say that as we still have a few things to finish before we will 100% say it's done. But you can sit in the room and enjoy the space already.
We have gone through a bit of housekeeping recently as well - we sold Kantine Urban Cafeteria so that we could focus more on The District.
You will see some more changes soon such as the launch of our new brunch/lunch menu, our updated dinner menu, and our updated cocktail and wine list.
More to follow..

almost done!

So a bit of news..
first off congratulations to
sonya k. - blueberry hill
cassidy ( aka bruce) - tough to be tender
and milan for - cafe del rus
but we need your help to break the tie for the 1st cocktail. See poll to the right.

We are almost done with the expansion, with Jeff finishing the trim today, and final inspections tomorrow. Exciting times kids!

still waiting....

It's now been 4 1/2 weeks since we gave our paperwork to the city to get a building permit.
I'd like to thank Gord ,my landlord, for being so patient and generous with us.
Here's a bit of PR from Scout Magazine and Sean Sherwood.

Jeff and I are also now completely back at the district, having recently sold Kantine to a couple of great guys who wanted a crack at owning their own restaurant.

Just in time to wait and wait and wait for the city to issue us a permit.
*interesting trivia* when we built the district originally from getting the keys to opening the doors to the public took 9 weeks. We got our building permit in 1 day that time. Now it's been just over 8 weeks and we haven't even brought the tools out of storage yet.

updates updates

A few things to note...in preparation of the upcoming expansion we are making a few changes - some temporary and some permanent.
As of next week we will be offering brunch/lunch on Friday Saturday and Sunday ONLY.
As of this week sundaysessions is going to take a short hiatus until the expansion is complete.
We'd also like to welcome Nick, Robin and Marco to the kitchen team, and wish Ben and Shuhei safe travels.

sorry about the delay...

I know, I know I haven't kept you in the loop. I'm sorry.
I will be announcing some winners soon for the Cocktail Naming Contest.
We'll probably do it around the opening of the expansion.
Where are we on that? Still waiting on Building Permits. Yes it has been almost 7 weeks since we began and that was eaten up by an "architect" who took money to outsource an engineer after 3 weeks of lovely song and dance. Then we joined the queue for the City's Permit issuance. So wonderful.Here's some pics of pre-construction anyways..

room to grow?

It looks as though we are going to be expanding south into number 11 lonsdale.
Unfortunately the Starfish didn't last, which forces our hand a bit..
so we're gonna raise and hope the river is kind.

Look for a lower ceiling, fireside lounge kind of a feel with touches of brick, hardwood and halogen.
Oh god more construction :(

Spring Forward

Well we are springing forward in more ways than one!
We're happy that Ben has found a place to live in North Van, and doesn't have to leave us!

Look for our new combined Lunch/Brunch menu to launch this weekend with a few great new dishes ( including a smoked salmon benny)


We're also working on a tight Sunday night program. I'm posting a mock up of the flyer as follows..

For those of you who remember how Balthazar was back in the day - I'm hoping to tip my hat to what Ivo rocked out backed then.

well that was a surprise!

For the last week and a half I've been playing phone tag with a guy regarding ( what I thought ) was a wedding reception dinner.
We lost touch late last week, and I merrily went off to Vegas.
So yesterday morning he calls Sara and asks if tomorrow ( saturday ) was still ok?
Of course it was not a problem and the arrangements were made.

So today Sara starts the party, only to discover this is not the reception BUT THE WEDDING!

So congratulations to the happy couple!

mental health break

I needed a little break..and what better place to go besides Las Vegas?

A few buffets, a little slot-action, some bowling, some shopping , and an amazing 2 1/2 hour behind-the-scenes tour with Nik Rollison the director of food & beverage at TI.
I'm back a little more rested and a lot more inspired.
If you've never been to Vegas, go.

Oh and we got our Oceanwise membership!

Thanks for the blue lip special

Jeff and I had a wonderful present the other night. Well Jeff did more than me. Someone a lot less fortunate than us decided to throw a rock through the front door and help themselves to 4 partial bottles of liqueur - including Blue Curacao. Now I appreciate a lightly orange flavored beverage ( although Drambuie or Grand Marnier is alot more to the point ) but seriously? So $500 for a new door and several hundred more for security screens for the booze....hopefully the perp enjoys his/her brutal sugar hangover. and a special thanks to Ironman ( brett stark ) for the carpentry work.