The Ovaltine Cafe is a traditional diner in the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, known for its traditional decor. The cafe was opened in 1942 and has served as a set for movies and television shows that want to film in a restaurant with an old-fashioned appearance.
On September 15, 2018, Craig Moss, a travel writer with the London newspaper The Telegraph, in consultation with a team of experts, published a list of the world's 50 best cafes, which included the Ovaltine.
Keith McKellar devoted a chapter to the cafe in his book Neon Eulogy, calling it "easily Vancouver's most prized antique cafe."
Randall Wong, the first Chinese-Canadian federal judge in Canada, worked at the Ovaltine in his youth. At that time the Ovaltine was near a court and a police station, and Wong attributed his interest in the law to his conversations with patrons who worked in law enforcement.
See also
References
- ^ Keith McKellar (2001). Neon Eulogy: Vancouver Cafe and Street. Ekstasis Editions. pp. 17–20. ISBN 978-1-896860-92-3. Archived from the original on 2019-02-25. Retrieved 2019-02-24.
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Simon Little (2018-09-23). "Vancouver's iconic Ovaltine Cafe named among '50 greatest cafes on Earth'". Global News. Archived from the original on 2019-02-22. Retrieved 2019-02-22.
In fact, the aesthetic is so striking that the cafe has been featured in a variety of film and TV productions, including the X-Files, Supernatural and I, Robot.
- Harold Kalman; Ron Phillips (2011). Exploring Vancouver: The Essential Architectural Guide. UBC Press. p. 51. ISBN 978-0-7748-4284-6. Archived from the original on 2019-02-25. Retrieved 2019-02-24.
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Mike MacEacheran (2018-05-04). "North America's unexpected neon jungle: Surprisingly, Vancouver – not Shanghai, Hong Kong or Las Vegas – was once the neon capital of the planet". BBC News. Archived from the original on 2019-02-26. Retrieved 2019-02-24.
On nearby Hastings Street, a quick succession of marvels then spreads farther east, including signs such as those at Save On Meats, The Balmoral and The Pennsylvania (hotels turned social housing projects) and Ovaltine Cafe, a city fixture dating to the early 1940s.
- Katherine Burnett (2013-12-16). "Commodifying poverty: gentrification and consumption in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside" (PDF). Urban Geography. ISSN 0272-3638. Retrieved 2019-02-24.
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Tara Lee (2009-04-08). "Film productions eat up Vancouver restaurants as shooting locations". Georgia Straight. Archived from the original on 2019-02-25. Retrieved 2019-02-22.
The legendary Ovaltine Cafe on East Hastings Street has been used "oodles and oodles of times", Dayal says, because of its distinctive old-time-diner feel. Da Vinci's Inquest used to film there weekly, and Dayal used it in I, Robot as a coffee hangout for Will Smith's Det. Del Spooner.
- Craig Takeuchi (2018-09-24). "Vancouver's long-running Ovaltine Café in Downtown Eastside named one of world's top 50 cafés". Georgia Straight. Archived from the original on 2019-02-22. Retrieved 2019-02-22.
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"This Vancouver spot was just named in the 'Top 50 Cafes on Earth'". Daily Hive. 2018-09-19. Archived from the original on 2019-02-25. Retrieved 2019-02-24.
With that said, it was rewarding to see that Vancouver's famous Ovaltine Cafe made the list, one of only two Canadian cafes to make his global ranking (the other is Montreal's Cafe Olimpico).
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"Vintage Vancouver cafe named among top 50 in the world". CTV News. 2018-09-23. Archived from the original on 2019-02-25. Retrieved 2019-02-24.
The Telegraph newspaper of London lauded the Ovaltine Cafe at 251 East Hastings as remarkable for its vintage furnishings.
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Gavin Fisher (2016-04-14). "B.C. Supreme Court honours 50-year career of province's longest-serving judge". CBC News. Archived from the original on 2017-03-10. Retrieved 2019-02-25.
'They came from the back of the police station to the alleyway and through the kitchen and I think I was influenced a lot by these people to go into law,' Wong told host Rick Cluff on The Early Edition.
49°16′53″N 123°05′54″W / 49.28149°N 123.09836°W / 49.28149; -123.09836
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