The Pidgin Restaurant in the DTES: Gentrification? Opportunity?
The recently opened Pidgin Restaurant has seen nightly protests by some residents of the Downtown Eastside who believe it is a symbol of continuing gentrification of Vancouver¹s poorest neighbourhood which is making the DTES less affordable. Restaurant supporters say the new businesses provide training and jobs for street people, some who inhabit Pigeon Park opposite the restaurant, who are eager to improve their lives.
Why are new restaurants drawn to the DTES? What are the benefits and tradeoffs for current residents? Is the broader issue inadequate social services in the DTES? Why did the Pidgin¹s owner frost the big windows that looked out to the street?
To frame the controversy, City Conversations has invited Ian Tostenson, co-founder of HAVE cafe, a training program for street people to get into the workforce, and the head of the BC Restaurant and Foodservices Association. Ivan Drury is an organizer with the Carnegie Community Action Project, supporting the protests. Wes Regan is the head of the Hastings Crossing Business Improvement Association, which covers the disputed area. Then it’s your turn to join the conversation.
When: Thursday March 7th
Time: 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Location: Room 1600, SFU Vancouver at Harbour Centre
Cost: Free
*Note* Guests are welcome to bring their lunch to City Conversations events
Sponsored by Bing Thom Architects and SFU Vancouver. Thanks to Wild Rice. Restaurants.
I got the pleasure to have a dining evening a Pidgin.
The food is good to excellent, and pretty surely in the heavy league of what Vancouver has to offer (the dessert are exceptional, and you should have room for it in this kind of restaurant) The damage is a reasonnable ~$40/person + wine ($8 to $11 per glass, the wine list could be much better). The only negative point is they don’t offer expresso.
Talking of the dining experience, a fine dining experience in a casual atmosphere (brasserie style, with good using of the old building, somehwat a rarity in Vancouver, or rather a good using of the heritage potential the EastSide has to offer, when you see so many decrepit heritage building to state of beyond repair: so the Pidgin chief should be congratulated for his new venture, able to draw people further East, and celebrated for the dining experience.
If you arrive very soon, some professional of the Poverty industry produce a show every evening from from 6 to 7pm, but shorter if it’s rainy or too cold. We are more of the late comer, so we sorely missed it the waiter told us
He also told us that the spot lights of the poverty show were incommodating the restaurant patrons, so they had to frost the window: They did that with very good taste (Many other restaurant, especially japanese style could have put blind, like the Tojo did on Broadway), and if stand up, you can still see connect with the outside.
The restaurant is pretty busy those day, and we confess that we have been here to make a political statement too:
-It is not to Ivan Drury and his friends to decide which business is good for the community or not.
And to conclude, the day before we have been to the Pidgin, it was a lecture a SFU Woodward, where it was remembered these words Jim Green had to the attention of the same poverty industry finding not enough was done for the poor
“The Woodward building had 200 social housing, what is your contribution?”
Yes, what is the contribution of the protester to make the Downtown Eastside a more “livable” place, and a bit less a “poverty trap”?