Dining Features

When times were good, downtown restaurants were packed at lunchtime with high rollers celebrating market upswings and impressing clients with lavish meals. Neil Currie—vice president of Vancouver-based VantageWire.com, a site that provides free real-time stock quotes—says he used to do business lunches every day. Now that's down to only twice a week.

At his last job in finance, Currie could flash his corporate card and rack up “ridiculous” restaurant bills. Recent economic events, however, have taught companies to be cautious. “We've got to watch our dollars in a downturn like this, because I'd rather get a paycheque than spend money that isn't really necessary,” Currie says during a phone chat.

When Currie does go out, he's strategizing with coworkers or working out contracts with resource and mining companies interested in advertising on his site. “We're starting contracts left, right, and centre, but there just isn't a budget for that [expensive meals] right now, unless we're signing a huge contract,” he explains.

He says Hy's Steakhouse would be the place to go to impress, but for the most part Currie lunches at Joeys, the Keg Caesars, and Cactus Club Cafe for its, ahem, attractive environment. “One of the hot features that Cactus Club has would be the ladies, especially for the predominantly male business that I am in,” Currie says. “If I ask a client where they want to go, they say they want to go to Cactus Club for the women.”

In a phone interview, Cactus Club president Richard Jaffray highlights the chain's other offerings for business clients. A menu with a variety of prices is a selling feature. “With such a range of options, you can get a quesadilla for under $10 and you can go up to a tenderloin [$33 filet mignon], so people can find the price they're comfortable paying.”

Free Wi-Fi means PowerPoint and Web site clicking can happen in between bites of tuna tataki. “There are so many people who don't have offices anymore, so we have become a de facto office,” Jaffray says. “Sometimes I see two computers set up and people doing presentations.” Plus, the casual restaurant vibe makes meetings less stuffy. “We're taking them out of that selling experience to more of a conversation.”

Cactus Club's sales are up from last year, Jaffray says, but the increase is less than in previous years. He partly blames the snowy winter but suspects that diners are becoming more careful with their ordering.

Jim Bateman, general manager at Italian Kitchen (1037 Alberni Street), says lunch volume is about the same as last year but people are splurging less. “When we first opened [in 2006], the market was very different,” he says. “People who would spend $400 or $500 on a bottle of wine are being a bit more conservative.”

In hard times, Bateman says, it's all about good value and efficient service for business clientele. “Reading your table is crucial. If we have a group of five hammering out a deal, we're giving attentive and unobtrusive service,” he says over the phone. A menu feature called Lunch 45 gets power lunchers in and out in 45 minutes with well-priced entrées like ricotta and Kobe beef lasagna for $12. Another good-value choice is a $22 three-course lunch that might include a Caprese salad, penne arrabiata, and tiramisu.

Other restaurants are slashing prices more aggressively to keep the penny pinchers coming. Culinaria Restaurant, at the International Culinary School at the Art Institute of Vancouver (100–609 Granville Street), offers pocketbook-friendly lunches for those willing to be patient with student cooks and servers. It has adjusted its menu to suit the times, offering wild salmon linguine at $10 and a creme caramel dessert for $5.

Patrick Whibley, an investment adviser at PI Financial Corp. and partner with Currie in a business networking group called Market Fusion, says his friends aren't running around town spending money as much. “It's definitely changed the way people act in this city. A lot of my buddies who used to go for expensive lunches aren't,” he says during a phone interview.

He lists Saltlik steakhouse (1032 Alberni Street) as one of his lunch standbys, where he goes after the market closes at 1 p.m. Over a meal of scallop and prawn linguine ($20), he'll do everything from structuring deals to working on new ones. In the face of gloom-sayers, Whibley stays optimistic, insisting that he hasn't really changed his spending habits. He also hasn't retrenched like his buddies, some of whom are even doing the unthinkable: packing a lunch.