What's New

 Renowned maker of such culinary delights as Red Arrow Biscuits, Lucky Torpedoes and Lost Lagoon Chocolate, the building now houses an upscale furniture retailer. 

 Built in 1912, closed in 1990, taken over by the Anglican Church and renamed Holy Trinity. 

 This nondescript building on a busy street in Kits has a colourful past. Originally built in 1913 for the Vaudeville circuit, it became a movie house until the doors were closed in 1955.  The Russian Community Centre took it over in 1958, and in 1966 it became The Afterthought, a psychedelic concert hall. The Grateful Dead and Steve Miller played there, among others. 

 One of the city's most popular vegetarian restaurants, the Naam opened in 1968 when Kits was known as Rainbow Road. It's open 24/7 and has remained virtually unchanged, both inside and out. 

 Along with the nearby Depancier house, this one might qualify as the oldest residence outside the downtown core. Built in 1894 or so, the photograph is from 1958, the oldest one I could find. The house is now home to The James Black Gallery. 

 This Edwardian style house, built around 1894, is regarded as the oldest currently occupied single family residence outside of the downtown core. It has gone through many incarnations, including a brothel, candy company, shoe repair and restaurant. 

 Mount Pleasant was Vancouver's first suburb, providing affordable homes to working class families in the city. Calladine's Grocery offered home delivery to the area. 

 These two homes were built around 1908, and one is now a popular coffee shop for the West End crowd. The other one got a new hat! 

 I imagine a lot of love went into the transformation of this corner store into a beautiful home. It's getting hard to find these little neighbourhood retail relics, although I recently came across a good trove of old photos so I'm going to focus for a while on finding the remaining ones in the City. 

 One of the West End's first convenience stores, the Cardero Grocery closed in 2017 and it, along with the house next door, were sold to an investment company for around $4 million. Plans for the future are unknown, but the property, although designated by the City as having significant heritage value, is not legally protected from demolition. The houses were built in the early 1900s.