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DINER: Powell’s Much Anticipated Cuchillo Set To Open Softly Over The Long Weekend

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by Andrew Morrison | The Latin-themed “Cuchillo” (Spanish for “Knife”) at 261 Powell St. has its occupancy and liquor permits all set. The highly anticipated 93 seat restaurant from John Cooper and former Cobre co-owner/chef Stu Irving will open for friends and family tomorrow (Saturday) night with soft opening evenings to follow over the long weekend. For all the details on what to expect, click here. You can also check out the menu (draft) mixed in with the photos below. Dig the rear nook (burgundy couch), the lengthy hightop communal table facing the long bar (ably manned by this year’s Vancouver Magazine Bartender of the Year, “H”) with its block bench seating, and the artwork by Erin Sinclair. It all looks awesome. Break a leg, fellas!

    ALL ANTICIPATED OPENINGS

    There are 11 comments

    1. Nice lookin’ space!

      I’m sure if any anti-gentrification protestors show up there will be a luchador on hand to deal with them.

    3. Another Mexican restaurant? Would love to see a regional Mexican restaurant instead of jumping on the bandwagon of tacos and tequila.

    5. There was no bandwagon to jump on when Stu introduced Nuevo Latino food to Gastown 6 years ago so you should probably just say ” Great to see the place finally open!”

    6. Sure, it’s really easy to dismiss the (imminent) pickets as just a silly inconvenience to a fun dining experience. But really, nice place and all… but opening a posh, expensive tapas restaurant in the poorest postal code in Canada? Little bit of a slap in the face.

    7. How, exactly is that a slap in the face. Spending 200k to 400k on a new business that employs people from the neighbourhood for eveyone in the city to enjoy. Sounds like they need a pat on the back. To turn the DTES from the poorest postal code in Canada, you do not need more charity. You need economic independence that comes from hard work and forethought from people like this.

    8. Actually Luna, Eskasoni First Nation reserve in Cape Breton & Winnipeg’s inner city are the poorest postal codes in Canada.

      Matter of fact, go on a walking tour of Saint John’s North End… it will make you cry & scream.

    9. Luna-

      So what’s preferable? Add a little more social housing and leave everything zoned for commercial use vacant so the neighbourhood becomes a ghetto? You do realize that since the Gastown renaissance has been happening over the last 6-7 years, it’s been mostly independent, socially-conscious and supportive businesses who have moved in, which has only increased awareness and aid to those in poverty, right? Are international, corporate and faceless chains preferred? because if it wasn’t independent businesses picking up these leases, that’s who would populate the neighbourhood. Seriously. Look at how much support there was for those suffering in the neighbourhood before recent gentrification, and check out the amount of social aid (food, housing, outreach) today. Would you rather the clock turned back on that? Talk to 90% of residents, not the noisy dozen or two protesters for hire. Most enjoy the neighbourhood no longer decaying and are quite happy that it’s not a field day for pimps and dealers as much as it was a few short years ago. Keep in mind that it’s business ventures whose tax dollars go to supporting social ventures. Were everything to be social enterprise, where should that money to support it come from.

      It’s not like the whole neighbourhood is all high-end restaurants and retail. There’s plenty of mixed use for all incomes, the way any healthy neighbourhood should be.

    10. The picketers are buffoons. The area is a heaping dump and God bless all of these brave business people for opening up in zombie land. That being said, $14 for a fish taco? PASS. If you’re going to open in the DTES b/c of cheaper rent, don’t try to gauge your customers like you’re on w 4th. Good luck, though.

    11. Actually the fish tacos are $8..$4 cheaper than the competition that actually IS in the Ghetto further down Hastings.
      F***kin whiners…get over it…its happening.

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