In the Cafe Bistro Over The Sea (Human Pursuits 30/1/23)
A journey out of Vancouver to the North Shore Mountains and Isetta Cafe Bistro
WEST VANCOUVER – A lazy but persistent drizzle poured out of the flat grey sky as Leah and I crossed the parking, past the Teslas and the Range Rovers and the lone Honda Civic, and entered the noisy glow of Isetta Cafe Bistro. We had driven almost an hour, over the Lion’s Gate Bridge, past the crowds at Park Royal, to the roadside eatery on the shoulder of Marine Drive. Housed in the husk of a former gas station, Leah would later tell me the cafe opened sometime during the pandemic and that its proximity to the Sea-to-Sky made it something of a mecca for cyclists and sports car dads.
Today, though, the cafe’s clientele was pretty much what you’d expect for West Vancouver: well-adorned young families, dressed in Nike and The North Face and Arc'teryx, stretched out leisurely over much of the cafe’s prime real estate, while older couples from the neighbourhood ate scones across from each other at square wood tables. Too bistro to really be considered a cafe (the lunch menu includes Delicata Squash Salad, Spaghetti Pomodoro, and Steak Frites), but too cafe to really be considered a bistro (along with first-come-first-serve seating, it offers board games), the restaurant is best viewed as a bridge between dejeuner and hors d'oeuvres, with posted hours of 8 AM to 3 PM.
In this sense we timed our visit perfectly, having arrived shortly after 11:30 AM. We approached the counter where two smiley West Van teenagers took our orders. Leah ordered a chai latte and a Morning After Sando, and I did the same, only with a cappuccino. We stepped to the side and stood there awkwardly, scanning the dining room for an open seat. Over Leah’s shoulder, I noticed an older white man sitting on a leather loveseat. He was dressed in expensive black technical gear, including a puffer jacket that seemed to draw inspiration from a used Hefty garbage bag, and a pair of monochromatic New Balance sneakers. On his wrist sat a gold chain bracelet, and he was holding a Space Black iPhone. The screen was illuminated with an email from some alternative news source I had never heard of before. I tried to read the subject line, but could only make out two words.
“Elon Musk”
Just then a seat opened up in the corner by the window. Leah and I sped-walked over and slid into the dark wooden chairs. Its previous occupant, an older woman in a black rain jacket, had left a pool of tea behind her on the tabletop. I got up and approached one of the West Van teens behind the counter. “Hey, sorry,” I began “Any chance we could get a cloth to wipe that down?”
He stared at me and then at the table.
“Oh sorry, I didn’t have a chance to get to that yet.”
“It’s okay, someone just left,” I replied.
“Let me get that for you.”
He ran his green cloth over the grey plastic tabletop in one long motion. I was just noticing his Nike Dunks when he turned and walked back to the counter. To my right, a couple sat at the end of a long table doing homework. They both looked more than a little like Bo Burnham.
“I think I need to go grab our drinks,” I said.
I got up and walked toward the espresso bar on the other side of the room, once again passing the man in black. His legs were splayed generously over the loveseat, and he was now holding a black leather wallet. With his right hand, he thumbed a stack of cash that appeared to contain only $20s and $50s. I grabbed our drinks off the counter and turned back to the table, where a different teenage server stood delivering our pair of sandos.
I sat back down and spoke.
“This place carries Francis Ford Coppola’s wine,” I said to Leah and a nearby fiddle leaf fig. We ate the rest of our sandos and then split a piece of banana bread and a large chocolate brownie.
“This place has to have the shortest happy hour ever,” said Leah “Only 2 to 3.”
“Yeah but I bet it pops off in the summer,” I said.
“We should try to come back when it gets a bit nicer. Maybe play hooky.”
“I’d be down.”
Outside, the single detached homes of the surrounding neighbourhood stood solemnly in the rain.
Traffic was slow heading back into the city but I didn’t really mind because we were listening to Neutral Milk Hotel. Leah was singing along with Jeff Mangum under her breath when suddenly she stopped. A row of cliffside mansions overlooked the water. “It’s a beautiful view, but the erosion,” she said. “I’d rather live on the other side, a little bit higher up.”
They decided to open the second lane just as we merged onto the Lion’s Gate Bridge. I flicked on my signal light and for a brief moment it seemed the road was endless. A heavy mist had formed over downtown and I noticed you couldn’t even see Harbour Centre. I turned my focus back to the road, and the home waiting for us just beyond static.
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