A well-known Chinatown restaurant has closed and the City of Vancouver said it terminated its lease.
Floata Seafood Restaurant, located at 180 Keefer St., has been a staple in the community for more than three decades and was a popular spot for hosting weddings and banquets.
“That space provides an incredibly important role in our city, and particularly in Chinatown,” Sarah Kirby-Yung, Deputy Mayor of Vancouver and city councillor told Global News.
“It’s been host to innumerable cultural occasions, weddings, banquets; it’s a community gathering space.”
However, she said that while the city will always make its best efforts to work with existing partners, they may not, over time, have the ability to continue to meet certain obligations.
“I’ll just say, generally speaking, over time, there is a need to upgrade and renovate spaces, but it’s also about the viability and desire of a restaurant partner to carry on after 30 years,” Kirby-Yung added.
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“That’s a long time.”
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She would not disclose specifics about the lease or what the city was asking the restaurant to improve.
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Kirby-Yung said this is an opportunity to revitalize the space and continue to support large-scale community events.
“I think, noteworthy to say that it’s the largest Asian venue, sort of restaurant-style facility that’s operating, I think, in Western Canada,” she added.
“There’s a huge need for it. The only other … space in the city that can accommodate crowds that large … would be going to hotel ballrooms.”
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Kirby-Yung said the city hopes for a good outcome and another operator in that space that can continue to serve those needs for the community.
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Jordan Eng, president of the Vancouver Chinatown BIA, said the news of the closure came as a shock.
“It may have been coming; there have been some rumblings in the background, but when it actually does happen, you know, this is a place where the community had gathered, banquets for 30-some-odd years,” he told Global News.
Eng said he hopes the city will find another operator, pointing out it is the largest Chinese restaurant in the city and the only one capable of holding 1,000 people.
Kirby-Yung doesn’t disagree.
“The city’s put a lot of effort into revitalizing Chinatown altogether,” she said.
“We’ve done a lot as a council in terms of supporting legacy businesses, investing in public safety, supporting cultural events. And you can see that energy coming back to Chinatown. A lot of the businesses are thriving.”
She said she is excited to see what is going to come next.
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