76 VANMAG.COM MAY 2017
worked his tail off for a very long time, I know for a fact that the
more I want, I’ve gotta make more money, I’ve gotta work harder, I
have to push my team harder, I have to drive my g uest experience,”
says Grunberg, the animated 36-year-old son of a Romanian-
immigrant litigator. “I have to make sure my product is bet ter
than yours. That’s competition. That’s healthy. And I think that
as Vancouver grows, competition is going to get more fierce—and
people are going to have to open up their concepts w ith that in
mind. I need to be the best. I can’t go at it half-assed, or else I’ll get
swallowed up.”
L’Abattoir opened in 2010 (after Seán Heather had moved out
and seismic upgrades had been completed), and in short order the
“French-influenced West Coast fare” establishment became one of
the city’s most acclaimed fine-dining restaurants. Grunberg, who
had previously been GM at Chambar and worked with Rob Feenie
at Lumière, says he’d a lways wanted to have his ow n restaurant—
and, a long w ith par tners chef Lee Cooper and Nin Rai, he worked
16-hour days, seven days a week, to make it happen.
With a reg ularly packed house, expansion came nat urally. “We
just grew out of L’Abat toir and were rea lly busy, and we had an idea
to open up a private dining room,” says Grunberg as we sit at the
long table in the sleek 50-seat brick-and-beam space, just behind
the main restaurant. “We thought, well, we could open up another
restaurant—but why not open up another venue that can create the
same kind of revenue that pigg ybacks off the concept we a lready
have?” This spring, after just over three years running the private
dining room, L’Abattoir will launch a monthly “restaurant within
a restaurant” concept called No. 1 Gaoler’s
Mews—transforming the lower-level kitchen
area into an exclusive chef’s table-style dining
experience for a limited number of guests.
L’Abattoir has found a way to grow its
empire without extending its footprint—
testament to the limitations, even for a
successful restaurateur like Grunberg, of
expanding downtown. “It would be my goal to
take a concept like L’Abat toir and be able to
compete on Alberni, compete with Nightingale
and Cactus Club and Joey. I think we’d do
ver y well dow ntow n,” he says. “But where, as
a modest restaurateur, do you get the capital?
Where do you get that $5 million or that $10
million? Do I even want to do that, given the
risk involved and how long it would take me to
pay it back?”
For many other restaurateurs—especially
those who can’t get away with charging $40-
plus for an entrée—the possibilit y of set ting
up in Gastown, or anywhere downtown, is a
ship that sailed long ago. Ron Oliver and Simon
Kaulback are two Gastown graduates who’ve
found success further east, on the fringes of
Chinatow n. The late-30s duo behind Mamie
Taylor’s met a decade ago while working at
Century House and went on to work the front
of house at the Diamond (Oliver) and the
former Boneta (Kaulback). When they decided
to launch their southern-style American
restaurant in 2013, they wanted to do it in the
neighbourhood they knew best—but Gastown
rents, says Oliver, were two to three times what
they were able to secure in Chinatow n.
That said, the move east four years ago was
a big gamble. “Back then, Chinatown was a
bit of a closed market,” says Oliver as we chat
at one of the homey restaurant’s high tables,
with Kaulback in the background talking
to a supplier on the phone. “There wasn’t
much of an opportunity for non-Chinese to
come in and open businesses.” They found
the property through their friends James
Iranzad and Josh Pape, the restaurateurs
behind Wildebeest, whose landlords—Steven
Lippman and Christian Willows, of Living
Balance Investment Group—had helped them
get established on a grit t y stretch of West
Hastings in 2012. Now the developers were
shopping a former baker y on East G eorgia as a
linchpin to the “next new ’hood” for aspiring
restaurateurs.
“When we came dow n here, we said to
[Lippman], ‘You need to invest in us like
we’re investing in the neighbourhood.’ AndIn addition to
L’Abattoir, Paul
Grunberg is
also a partner
in Savio Volpe
in the Fraser
neighbourhood,
where he lives
with his wife and
two young kids.