Vancouver family-run diner No. 1 on Yelp's top 100 restaurants in Canada list
It's not on the menu, but comfort is what the Mah family serves up at the unassuming, out-of-the-way diner that just topped Yelp's list of the 100 best restaurants in Canada for 2023.
The review platform's list was released Wednesday and the Northern Café and Grill ranked No. 1. The breakfast and lunch spot is almost hidden, located up a narrow flight of stairs in a building next to a lumberyard in the southernmost part of the city – and it's a destination dining for regulars and tourists alike.
Raymond Mah, a Red Seal trained chef, works alongside his mom Connie, dad Jimmy, and brother Richard at the restaurant. The entire family, he tells CTV News, is thrilled by the Yelp ranking.
"Being number 1 is such a great honor. We're so happy," he says.
"We definitely could not have done this without the support of the community and our guests and our family and friends. It's been such a great experience."
What Mah thinks sets the spot apart from others is the way they treat their customers and prepare their food.
"What really stands out is our culture. For us here, we definitely treat all of our guests like family, that's our most important service. A lot of our ingredients are homemade, everything just tastes like home cooking — and fresh," he says.
"We just concentrate on comfort food."
The low-ceilinged, 44-seat café has a menu that includes Western breakfast foods like pancakes, corned beef hash, and omelets. For lunch, there are burgers and sandwiches as well as Asian dishes like wonton soup, chow mein, and dry garlic pork. The ground beef for the burgers is homemade, the fries are freshly cut in-house and the wontons are made by hand, Mah says, describing what he thinks makes the food so popular.
The walls are covered in handwritten notes of appreciation from customers, hard copies of the kind of rave reviews that can be found on Yelp. The diner's slogan is "Our house is your house" and Mah explains what that means.
"We try to get to know everybody that walks through these doors. We get to know their name, we remember where they sat the first time they came, what they ate, how many creams they like in their coffee," he says.
The diner has been a restaurant in some form since 1949 and Mah's parents bought it in 2008 after retiring at a relatively early age from running other eateries. He joined them a few years later and says he was instrumental in using social media to amplify the word-of-mouth reputation the business was starting to enjoy.
In a city where the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic saw a slew of large, well-known, and long-established restaurants shutter, the Northern Café and Grill survived and is thriving.
"I truly believe in our culture, our values, and our service here," Mah said.
CTV News' Mike McCardell visited the café in 2021 to learn more about what makes it so special. That story is available here.
The entire list of Yelp's top 100 restaurants can be found online.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
'Oh my God, you're my brother': Man in his 70s discovers 6 unknown siblings
After receiving a DNA kit one Christmas from his son-in-law, Hugh McCormick soon discovered that he had six unknown siblings, with whom he shared the same birth parents.
No refund for travellers who cancelled flight already scrapped by airline: regulator
Four years on, the controversy over whether airlines owed refunds to passengers after cancelling hundreds of thousands of flights during the pandemic continues to simmer, aggravated by a sluggish, opaque complaints process.
Just how bad are ultraprocessed foods? Here are 5 things to know
Many foods fall under the category of ultraprocessed foods, depending on their exact ingredients. This type of food has been studied a lot lately, and the results aren’t great.
'My family doctor just fired me': Ontario patients frustrated with de-rostering
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
Rates of cancer declining in Canada, but more work needed to save lives: projections
A new study projecting declining rates of cancer cases and deaths in Canada demonstrates the success of prevention and early detection programs, but also highlights areas where more work is needed to save and prolong lives, researchers say.
DEVELOPING Trump trial arrives at a pivotal moment: Star witness Michael Cohen is poised to take the stand
The star prosecution witness in Donald Trump's hush money trial is set to take the stand Monday with testimony that could help shape the outcome of the first criminal case against an American president.
Canucks hold off Oilers for 4-3 win in Game 3
Brock Boeser had two goals and an assist, and the Vancouver Canucks hung on for a 4-3 win over the Edmonton Oilers in Game 3 of their second-round Stanley Cup playoff series.
Ottawa pizzeria places among top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world at international competition
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
Man fatally 'slashed in the neck' in downtown Toronto, suspect outstanding
Police are searching for a male suspect after a man was “slashed in neck” on Sunday morning in downtown Toronto and died.