ESCOBA BACK IN BUSINESS
New partners reopen doors
Could there be a slight turnaround happening in the restaurant industry? Are things looking brighter? Restaurateurs have been talking about more corporate bookings, more Christmas parties and a busier September and October than in recent years. All anecdotal, of course, and certainly not everyone is cheerier these days yet new restaurants continue to open.
And even some old ones are returning to the fray. Like Escoba Bistro & Wine Bar at 624 8th Ave. S.W. (403-474-4828). We’ve lost a couple dozen restaurants since the recession hit but perhaps the most noticeable was the closure of Escoba in July 2016. At the time, owner Darren Hamelin cited rising business and property taxes and other costs combined with lower revenues as the cause. Now, while most costs haven’t gone down (property tax has dropped a little), Hamelin is optimistic about the future and has restructured his business.
Hamelin owns the building that houses both Escoba and Vern’s. And while the rent for Vern’s has helped pay Hamelin’s bills for the past 16 months, the main floor restaurant has sat empty. He’s had numerous offers to lease the space but has turned to two of his former staffers to launch a new venture there. He offered reasonable rent to Laurel and Brad O’Leary, gave them permission to use the Escoba name and is hoping to recoup slightly more than his monthly building costs. It’s the best of a bad situation.
Brad O’Leary had been the executive chef at Escoba since 2009 while Laurel was the operations manager. Following the 2016 closure, chef O’Leary shifted to the Petroleum Club while manager O’Leary focused on having a baby. The offer from Hamelin was too good to refuse so they jumped into owning their own business. They could have chosen a new name but the 24 years of goodwill built into the Escoba name is a strong asset.
So the new partners did some quick renovations on the old and reputably haunted Legion building, brightening the 158-seat, three-room space with increased lighting and lightening the former butterscotch decor with a softer tone. It helps make the splendid murals of Mark Cromwell — one of which survived the move over from Penny Lane in 2007 — pop off the walls. They hired back most of the former kitchen staff and dusted off the old kitchen equipment and tables. (Only one soup tureen had gone missing since the closure.) They also created a menu of old favourites from what they call Escoba 1.0 that date back to the Penny Lane days, dishes from Escoba 2.0 in the current location and new dishes created for Escoba 3.0. (Note: The menu is done in a larger font and on brighter paper than before, a welcome relief for those tired of tiny-font menus on dull backgrounds.)
Hailing from Escoba 1.0 are the feta-spinach-almond-chickpea spring rolls, the mushroom soup and various pasta dishes. From Escoba 2.0, there’s beef tenderloin in Bordelaise sauce, Margherita arancini, grilled salmon with shrimp risotto and a seafood paella. And Escoba 3.0 introduces grilled squid with a saffron aioli, Greek bruschetta with Kalamata olives and feta, a steak sandwich with wine demi-glaze and stilton, and new flatbreads and pastas. Prices run from the mid-teens to the low $30s in a bid to provide quality with value. And Escoba portions remain large. Note: Escoba offers half-price appetizers Tuesday through Friday from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. and on Saturdays from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Escoba’s wine list is well selected and global with bottles starting in the low $40s. At lunch, all wines-by-the-glass are $9.
So look for the new, large, brighter Escoba sign on 8th Avenue. Maybe it’s sign of good times ahead.
Another displaced eatery has re-emerged as a farmers’ market kiosk. Pie Cloud, the lovely pie restaurant that occupied a space in Kensington for a couple years (it’s now Cotto there) has opened in a different form in Market on Macleod (7711 Macleod Trail S.). Maureen DePatie is now in pie retail instead of the full-blown pie restaurant biz. “No staff issues, no building issues,” she says of her new spot. “Just people who want good pie.”
DePatie is now working with a small handful of staff, including her former pastry chef, selling her popular sweet and savoury pies by the piece or the full pie. And she’s taking orders for special requests. She had dozens of pie recipes at her restaurant and will work through the lengthy list over time.
Plans are to serve seven fresh sweet ( luscious lime with a gingersnap crust, pecan, lemon meringue) and seven savoury ( barbecue pork with cornmeal crust, steak & ale, chicken pot) pies at any given time either by the slice or whole. More will be available pre-cooked and frozen, ready to warm for dinner. All pies will be cooked on site so the waft of cinnamon-laced apple pie or sage-and-rosemary scented turkey dinner pie may be very tempting.
Pie orders can be made at piecloud.ca and at 403-813-6747.