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The Pubs of Vancouver
Good Vancouver
bars and pubs are often filled with lively crowds.
Host
City of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games!
While it's known internationally for
its club scene, Vancouver is also a pubber's paradise.
In many ways, it's reminiscent of a little London (certainly it's British
heritage plays a large role in making is feel this way) with pubs tucked
into spaces next to shops, hotels, businesses and bistros.
The Vancouver lifestyle is perfectly suited to the pub. People are
largely casual here and they like to hang out with a few pints and friends.
As a result, there are some really cool hangouts, a few of which mix
in a strong singles scene that rivals that of the clubs.
Pubs of different character – and characters – are located
throughout Vancouver's many neighborhoods as follows:
• Downtown/Granville
• Yaletown
• Gastown
• The
East Side/Main Street
• Kitsilano
Downtown/Granville Street
The heart of Vancouver's pub life is downtown. This encompasses the
primary shopping and hotel district of the city. The scenic landmark
is Canada Place, the large sailing ship-style building overlooking
Burrard Inlet.
The Lennox Pub is
a modern-English establishment with good food and drink.
Those looking for a warm, cozy pub have only to go as far as The
Jolly Taxpayer (600 block of West Hastings). This British-style
establishment is what a good pub is all about. It has an inviting entrance,
is kind of dark, has leather chairs, a pool table, lots of wood and
a bookcase (alas, the latter is fake).
 The
Jolly Taxpayer has "Old English Pub" written all over it,
although the TVs give it bit of a welcome modern touch. It is very comfortable,
the kind of place where one could walk in for a pint and stay for hours.
Singles should note that Fridays are busy from 5-10 and you can get
dinner from its traditional pub menu.
Down the street, on Pender just near Granville, is a lively sports
and social club. Malone's is rustic, as all good sports bar should
be, has a large-screen TV and people who are just out to drink and don't
care at all about what's on the tube.It's most crowded on Friday nights.
On Granville, home to Vancouver's young club scene, the Doolan's
Irish Pub (at Nelson is the best place. It's clean and so is the
crowd. This highly popular weekend mingling spot also draws in the occasional
crazy crew for a number of brews.
Ignore the fact The Lennox Pub (Granville and Robson) is located
beneath a Burger King. It's a clean, modern place that has the feel
of a classic pub. A diverse menu makes it a popular lunch and dinner
spot and its patio is perfect for watching the interesting activities
of Granville Street. Past 10, the small patio is packed.
To classy to be considered a pub but a good meeting spot for locals
before heading to the clubs is the Speakeasy (921 Granville). For food
and drink, The Granville Room (957 Granville) has upscale fare
in a bar setting.
Looking for a place to curl up with a good book and a pint on a rainy
afternoon? Legend's Grill & Tap Room (Dunsmeir and Granville)
is the place. The high ceilings and tile floors make it less cozy than
the Taxpayer, but it's inviting enough to sip a drink and read. Just
be sure and get through the good chapters before 4 o'clock, because
around this time a steady stream of people who have obviously snuck
out of work start flowing in like beer from the tap. It's mostly men
in ties, but occasionally a girl from the office is along with the boys.
This is especially the case on Fridays and the many conversations make
the place pretty loud. The overflow goes downstairs to a large pool
hall. At night, Legend's turns into a club with Latin music Thursdays
and Fridays.
Railway Club (Dunsmuir and Seymour) is a club only in that it
features local musicians on its tiny stage. But that's a mere sideshow
to the patrons. If one wants to see all of Vancouver's walks of life
gathered in one spot, this is the place. Club Railway is where the financial
suit-men mingle with backpacked hippies, where gays interact with straight
people, where Asians and Canadians share drinks together. It's one-stop
culture shopping for all Vancouver has to offer.
The Speakeasy on Granville across from the Roxy is a casuallly
elegant spot where locals meet up before going to the clubs. Sometimes
they just stay.
A popular hangout is Carlos & Buds (555 Pacific). Located
in an old Shell station, it has a large outdoor patio and defines the
term "casual." A huge menu make it good for food as well as
dringks. On nice wekend days and nights, it gets packed. Even when it's
not, one could keep busy just reading all the clevr signs on the wall.
For instance, the stalls in the men's bathroom has an express lane –
4 beers or less!
For a good game of darts, check out The Rose & Thorn.
Fo sports, especially on sunny days, is Mavrick's on the Waterfront
(770 Pacific Blvd.) The build-your-own pasta bar is almost as popular
as the beer. The place is absolutely bonkers in the afternoons following
the Molson Indy on Labour Day weekend.
Looking for a good stroll? Robson Street's many restaurants,
cafes and shops make it a popular early evening activity for the 20s-
and 30s-crowd, especially between Burrard and Butte streets.
Club Railway entertains
Vancouver's diverse crowd with live music.
Yaletown
Yaletown, a rebuilt old warehouse district, is where Vancouver's young
and trendy people live and play. This is one of Vancouver's defining
small neighborhoods, presenting a distinct personality all its own.
The brick buildings now house exclusive boutiques, small cafe-style
restaurants such as the popular Milestones and the upscale Blue
Water and a populated corner coffee shop, Blenz Coffee. Located
on the east side of Vancouver between downtown and the Granville and
Cambie street bridges, it is basically a two-block area of Richards
and Hamilton Streets bordered by Drake and Helmcken.
The social heartbeat of Yaletown is the Yaletown Brewing Company,
a large microbrewery with good food, a pool room and a patio that overlooks
Hamilton St. It is the neighborhood gathering spot, especially Thursdays,
Fridays and Saturdays.
Clubbers finish the night across the street at Bar None, a comfortable
club that resembles a living room (although on busy nights there are
so many people it's hard to tell).
Yaletown is lively, mixing class and casual in an environment very
inviting to those on the sexual prowl. It's weakness is that it lacks
the local charm of some of Vancouver's other neighborhoods. That may
not matter for those interested in catching the ear of an interested
local but here, it's definitely the characters that shine more than
the character.
Gastown
Did we make a wrong
turn and wind up in Amsterdam?
Each city seems to have an invisible force that attracts tourists like
a magnet. In Vancouver it's Gastown. Maybe that's because it hugs Burrard
Inlet, or because it's a short walk from Canada Place, or perhaps because
it has a few of the standard tacky souvenir shops. It's also about the
only place downtown where visitors should be careful of crime after
dark.
Its cobblestone streets and miniature black lamppost-type fixtures
make it seems as if one has made a wrong turn and wound up in Amsterdam.
Certainly the coffeeshop-looking Cambie House Saloon on Cambie
Street, located on the first floor of a youth hostel, adds to this perception.
It's a collection of people one would easily find in, well, Amsterdam.
The Steamworks Brewing Company is a more conservative call for
those who left the backpack at home. Its outdoor patio overlooking the
water make it a hot lunch and afternoon drink spot.
Gastown has a couple of nightclubs – Shine and the Purple
Onion – which are reviewed in our Clubs section.
The East Side/Main Street
Isolated from downtown, Main Street is a truly local area of Vancouver
where few tourists ever have the pleasure of discovering.
It's known as The East Side and contains a pair of separate communities
full of eclectic shops, bars and bistros. The crowd is classy yet casual
and very local from the surrounding neighborhoods.
It starts just west of the Georgia Viaduct at The Brick House in the
700 block and continues to a place called Whip at 60th Ave. Here and
in between is a real taste of the culture and diversity of Vancouver.
The crowds here are home-based, and the businesses are small clothing
shops and other family or individual-owned stores. The surrounding pubs
reflect this identity.
The Brick House is a small, quaint pub where people go to hang
out and play darts. Upstairs is a lovely little bistro offering incredible
bargains such as a shrimp and noodle stirfry for $7. Weekends at the
bistro are packed, often with a table wait of an hour or more. This
is no problem, as the lively bar scene quickly passes the time. Thursdays
feature poetry readings, Friday is martini night, and there are other
special events every night except Mondays.
Further up Main Street is The Locust (25th and Main)
is another quaint neighborhood watering spot and The Latin Quarter
is a tasty tapas restaurant and bar. The Whip (6th and Main)
is part art gallery and part pub that reflects the owner's love of art.
It has a restaurant, live music and frequently features special events.
It's adjacent to Slickety Jim's, Public and Madison's,
all favorite pubs of the locals.
Bukowski's, named after the legendary American writer Charles
Bukowski who wrote the movie 'Barfly.' features poetry readings every
Tuesday. It is located in the heart of 'The Drive' (more formally known
as Commercial Drive), an area which is considered very much Vancouver's
only bohemian/hip/cool neighbourhood, an area which the Utne Reader
once referred to as 'one of the ten coolest places to hang in North
America'.
Kitsilano
The fun Kitsilano
crowd is not always beach laiid-back.
California meets Canada at Vancouver's hottest beach area.
Locals refer to Kitsilano – located just west of family-packed
Granville Island – as Kitifornia because it reminds them of a California
beach town (except that Southern California gets about 250 days more
of sunshine a year than does Kitsilano).
Here is where blonde-haired girls twinkle their blue eyes at muscle-happy
men. Everybody here runs for exercise, so looking good is definitely
a prime pastime. Such attention to physical detail must be displayed,
and after the beach people do just that from the patio at Malone's.
It overlooks the beach and is THE place to go after a day of sun, sand
and surf (or any combination thereof).
Those seeking a quieter hangout go to Tangerine across the street.
Tangerine is large on fun but small on space; it only has something
like 15 tables.
The club in Kitsilano is Urban Wall, which features different
themes each night.
On nearby Granville Island, The Sandbar has a funky dance floor
and really popular patio scene.
There you have it – PubClub's guide to the Pubs of Vancouver.
Want more!? Jump on The Party Bus below to go clubbing in Vancouver.
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stop on the Party Bus: Vancouver's Clubs
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