850 Thurlow Claims Another Eatery, Cursed Space Soon To Return As The Harrow

by Andrew Morrison | What do Saveur, Ensemble, Corner Suite Bistro De Luxe, Piccolo Mondo, and the Purple Olive Grill all have in common? They’re all restaurants that shuttered – in recently memory – at 850 Thurlow Street, just south of Robson’s main drag. It’s pretty much the most cursed restaurant location that Vancouver has.

And can you believe it, yet another has volunteered to give it a go. This time around it’s a sports bar/pub called The Harrow (photo: Shaun Layton). Imagery on their Facebook page leads me to expect potato skins, quesadillas, chicken satays, neon-coloured shots, what appears to be a slice of caramel-drizzled cheesecake from 2003 (no candle?), a Mad Men fetish, buckets of Budweiser and Bud Light, and yes, a neck-inked barman pouring shots of Bols Blue…

So what do you think. Is this a recipe for total success or abject disaster? Either way, join us in wishing them all the luck in the world, because they’re sure as shit gonna need it!

Reverence, Respect, and Realization: What The Acorn Taught Me

At 21 years old, I'm still just a kid and relatively new to working in restaurants, but I grew up umbilically tied to the hospitality industry. My father was a food writer, and my mother is a photographer. Their careers meant that most of my early years were spent in kitchens and dining rooms instead of on playgrounds and soccer fields; consequently, I learned my table manners before I could count past one hundred.