So after two days of work in Yaletown, I have come to the conclusion I don’t know Yaletown from a work perspective. I have walked through Yaletown on numerous occasions and have patronized their restaurants and bars. Knowing an area from a work perspective is a completely different thing though. When you work in an area, it’s absolutely vital to know the location of different services and businesses. For the most part, you don’t really care about the hottest place for drinks or the restaurant who has the best chef from France. What you do want to know is: Where can you get a doughnut (preferably a Timmy’s)? Where can I get custom made sandwich for cheap? Where is the nearest post office? Where is the nearest dry cleaner? Is there a dollar store around? Where is the nearest food court (don’t tell me it’s Pacific Centre)? Where is the nearest convenience store? What are good places to get good takeout for lunch?
When Black Box was downtown near Canada Place, I knew the answer to all those questions, which made working life a lot easier because in a span of five minutes I could get a coffee, doughnut, seafood sandwich, a bubble mailer, my silk underwear, smokes, a screwdriver, and Chinese food without breaking a sweat. Now if all I wanted to know was where to get a $30 salad, Yaletown would be pretty easy to figure out. As it stands now, I need to figure out all that stuff again. The UFG welcome package contains a few tips for where to get stuff, like the location of bank branches and some dry cleaners but I’ll have to do some exploring on my own. WTF? The near Tim Horton’s is six blocks away?
Dollar store is half a block North on Hamilton, West side of the street. 7-11 is right up on Helmcken and Homer, and there’s a Shopper’s Drug Mart a little North on Homer.
You don’t need a food court as Yaletown is nothing but eateries. But, if you must go to Pacific Centre, then just hope the Canada Line, and you’re there at the next stop. Or, go all the way to Waterfront for Harbour Centre, which you’re likely familiar with. (Or go the other direction and you can hit Wendy’s near the Broadway – City Hall station.)
There’s a Quizno’s on Davie, right by the Skytrain station, and if you go around the corner (on Pacific) you’ll find a Subway, a Dairy Queen, and down a bit further, a Panago (personal pizza and pop for $6, tax included!).
Yopo is a small Chinese restaurant on Homer that has good, inexpensive, daily specials (http://www.yopocafe.com/special.html), and right across the street from us is Urban Thai Bistro, that has great lunch specials.
Then, there’s Grounds for Appeal a few blocks away on Cambie, that has tasty butter chicken. (Right, Garrett?)
There’s also a pretty good produce market very close to us on Pacific where you can build your own salads.
And there’s so much more.
Yay Cam! Thanks for the wealth of info!
Hey! My office is not too far from yours now. Let me take you for lunch this week! I’ll email you.