Feast The Neighbourhood Table believes in real food and real connections, in food that is simply delicious and unpretentious. They offer a ‘Neighbourhood Table by The Sea’ with a menu inspired by the region, celebrating B.C’s freshest and finest. We know the people that lovingly produce the vegetables and proteins that are the foundation for our menu. Our culinary team believes in food that is simply delicious and unpretentious. We are social beings, interested in easy conversation, restorative laughter and a genuine welcome. Come join us around the neighbourhood table.
Question: How are you supporting other local businesses?
Answer: We try to do either local, big or small. If it’s not local-local, then I ask whether the person who is selling me the product, putting it on their table or in their glass every day. For us, working with suppliers is all about relationships. So many of our suppliers also come in to dine in the restaurant, and I love that. We feature so many local products on our menu. For our wine list, we always try to work with small, family businesses. We carry some excellent local wines like Le Vieux Pin, Painted Rock and La Stella, but even with our international wines we choose to work with family owned wineries. We carry Phillips Brewery for our local beer, and we just brought in Wildeye Brewery for our seasonal offering. Our bread comes from A Bread Affair, meat from Sebastian’s and Cioffi’s. For our produce, we buy locally sourced whenever possible. We use Emerald Hearth and Yen Brothers. We feature desserts on our menu from Temper Chocolate Pastry.
We also use a lot of local service providers. We get all our paper packaging from Tapio Tea, a young, creative, and energetic paper food packaging and bubble tea product wholesaler based in Vancouver B.C. Our point of sale is from Auphan, a Vancouver-based software company. There are no hidden costs and they provide excellent support. Our chemical company is BBS Pro based in Surrey. Their CEO dines at the restaurant. We get all our tableware from locally-based Puddifoot. I am a small restaurant and their pricing is the same for big and small restaurants and it’s transparent. They also eat brunch at our place 🙂 Our linen company is EcoSan, based in Coquitlam. I met the owner because he was driving the truck doing his own deliveries one day! We get office supplies from Office Essentials based in Coquitlam. For our accounting, we use The Fifteen Group with offices in Vancouver and Toronto. We use an independent local designer for our website and all our printing goes through TPH printing, a Canadian company.
Question: What social and environmental practices are you proud of?
Answer: We try to compost and recycle as much as we can, and leave the least amount of waste as possible. Behind the bar we have containers to separate all the materials and a great system in place. And we have the same in the kitchen. I take all the refundable containers back to the express depot myself each week. We try to work with suppliers that help us minimize our waste too. For example, we used to have a Nespresso machine to keep our coffee fresh and consistent, with no mess and no wasted coffee. But the pods have been a waste problem in the past, so we partnered with Caffe Umbria and brought in a specialized Italian espresso machine which uses compostable pods.
We have between sixteen and twenty-six employees, depending on the season, and we strive to be a great employer. We provide benefits for all our full time employees, and give our kitchen staff a meal for each shift, and our servers get a meal discount.
We also support a lot of local charities, schools and other causes with donations, gift certificates and time. We support the Dundarave Forest of Miracles which helps end homelessness and the Boys Club Network providing mentorship and connection for boys. I went to judge the summer camp for boys in the Boys Club Networks when they did a cook off at the end of the summer, and made a presentation on food service careers for about 70 boys. I’m also an active member of Bikers Against Child Abuse (BACA) Vancouver chapter and our mission is to “empower children (who have been abused) to not feel afraid of the world in which they live.”
We’re also proud that we partner with other local businesses for our mutual success. Recently during COVID-19 we did a partnership to open an outdoor restaurant on the beach in West Vancouver with Savary Island Pie Company and the Truffle House. We believe in working together with other businesses that we might have viewed as competitors because we believe that more business in the area is more business for all of us. I want people to come here, then go to other businesses around me. If businesses around me are successful, then my business will be successful.
