Vancouver’s iconic Naam Restaurant up on the market

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One among Vancouver’s oldest and most iconic vegetarian eating places is up on the market, listed on-line as a “future redevelopment property.”

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The Naam Restaurant, together with the land and constructing on West 4th Ave. — which features a two-bedroom suite above the restaurant — is listed on the market at slightly below $8 million.

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The Naam opened in 1968 and was initially a well-liked assembly place for antiwar advocates, environmentalists and different counterculture teams. Situated within the coronary heart of what was then often known as “Rainbow Street,” it has served vegetarian meals for over 50 years.

“The outdated story goes that Greenpeace really began in a nook of the Naam,” mentioned Jacob Beauregard, weekend supervisor on the Naam. He mentioned the group reportedly deliberate its first marketing campaign within the restaurant.

“I feel round the place desk 19 may be proper now,” he mentioned.

Marie Bohlen, an American illustrator dwelling in Vancouver, recommended what was to turn out to be Geenpeace’s first marketing campaign in February of 1970. She proposed crusing a ship north to a U.S. nuclear take a look at website in Alaska.

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Beauregard mentioned the present homeowners, who’ve run the Naam because the early ’70s, had been now of their 70s themselves and seeking to retire.

“From what I perceive their youngsters are doing utterly various things, professionally,” Beauregard mentioned. “No one’s actually desirous to take (the restaurant) on.”

Beauregard, who has labored on the Naam since round 2015, mentioned employees have been anxious and unhappy after studying in late August that the restaurant was being put up on the market. Many have labored on the restaurant for years, together with one lady who’s now in her 70s.

“They know the place very well,” Beauregard mentioned. “They, fairly frankly, deserve a number of respect. They usually’re anxious about having to begin at a brand new place the place they don’t get the respect that they’re used to.”

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“The Naam has given me a number of alternatives in life,” Beauregard added. “I’m about to graduate and I’d have by no means began faculty with out the Naam.”

The true property itemizing advertises the property as a “future redevelopment property” but in addition highlights the “excessive profile” restaurant on the bottom ground, which the itemizing claims earns over $1.5 million yearly.

Beauregard mentioned he didn’t know what would occur if the restaurant needed to transfer however mentioned he felt the Naam has “a sure recipe for achievement” that set it other than different vegetarian eating places.

“We nonetheless make all the pieces from scratch,” he mentioned. “We actually concentrate on high quality sourcing.”

He mentioned the constructing itself was an enormous a part of the restaurant’s success, too.

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“A few of this furnishings has been right here because the draft dodgers constructed it,” he mentioned. “This constructing’s received outdated glassware, it’s very distinctive.”

Based on the Vancouver Heritage Basis, the constructing housing the Naam was inbuilt 1920. The constructing’s exterior has remained largely unchanged because it was first constructed.

A dry items store was the primary tenant of the constructing, adopted by a bakery within the Nineteen Thirties. A laundromat opened within the Nineteen Fifties, adopted by Love Cafe till 1968, when the Naam opened.

The Naam is the one remaining authentic pure meals enterprise from the Nineteen Sixties in Kitsilano, in line with the Vancouver Heritage Basis.

It doesn’t take reservations, as an alternative working on a first-come-first-serve foundation.

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