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It’s not an exaggeration to say that Vancouver’s notion of brunch has never been the same since the arrival of Café Medina. Beginning in January 2008 as a small annex of its next-door neighbour, the wildly popular Chambar, it was a collaboration between Chambar co-founders Karri Green-Schuermans and Nico Schuermans along with Robbie Kane, an Ontario native who had been a server at Chambar since its second month of business in 2004.
Despite never owning a restaurant before, Robbie proved to be a natural. Nine months after opening, its menu expanded from just coffee and Liège-style waffles to a variety of Mediterranean-inspired dishes (developed by Nico), and Medina almost immediately became one of the most popular dining destinations in the city — so much so that Chambar’s dining room was repurposed during Medina’s daytime hours to accommodate the overflow.
In 2013, Robbie became sole proprietor of Medina, relocating it in August 2014 to a larger space adjoining the lobby of downtown’s L’Hermitage Hotel, where it remains to this day. Its standards have never wavered, nor has its popularity — in fact, it likely could move to a space twice the size and still have weekend line-ups.
Robbie is also a partner in the Vancouver location of Superbaba, which is a two-time winner in the Best Casual category of the Vancouver Magazine Restaurant Awards.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
What’s your earliest memory of being taken to a restaurant?
Swiss Chalet.
That’s a very Ontario answer.
Yeah. It was frequent — probably once or twice a month — because there was one near my dad’s office. The first restaurant experience, when I was very young, probably 6 or 7 — my mom had a cousin in Saugerties, New York, near Woodstock, and I remember visiting her. I think it was an Italian restaurant we went to. I remember it being fancy, but it probably wasn’t, because it was in hippie-town.
My first restaurant job was at the Pickle Barrel, at the Promenade Mall [in Thornhill, Ontario]. (A note from Michael, who, like Robbie, is Jewish and a native Ontarian: The Pickle Barrel began in 1971 as a single-location Jewish deli. It’s now a shitty Denny’s-like chain.) We used to go there often as a family. I don’t remember the affiliation between my dad and someone who worked there — a manager or something — but that’s how I got my first restaurant job, when I was 14. I was a dishwasher and busboy.
What brought you from Ontario to here? And of all the things you could’ve done after leaving your previous job in the film industry [as a photographer and location manager], why this?
Serendipity, mostly. There’s three iterations of me coming to B.C. The first is that my brother, Brian, who designed this restaurant and is in the film industry, was living here. I’d just graduated from high school and I just wanted to take a year to essentially cause trouble and leave Ontario, and then I got accepted to both York University and UBC. I was listless; I had no direction. I just thought, “I’ll go to university because it’s what I should do.” So, I moved back to Toronto and went to York.
What did you study?
Sociology, anthropology, general arts.
The choices of people who don’t know what they want to do.
Correct. I started my second year and thought, “Sorry, this isn’t me.” I quit in October or November, got a waitering job in Yorkville, made money, and then I left the following September to travel through Southeast Asia. And after I finished travelling, I landed back here [in Vancouver] in 1996. I was introduced to a guy named Benny Graydon, who hired me for a restaurant that was just about to open in Yaletown called Century Grill, which is now Blue Water. I was an opening server there. It was lighting in a bottle; it opened and became very busy, very fast, and everyone wanted to be there — all the athletes, all the fancy people — and it was awesome.
I met my first wife, who was also working there, and then we left in ’98 and lived in Europe for a while, and then we went back to Toronto for five years. This is where I fell into photography and [movies]. I also supplemented my income with restaurant work. I had my daughter in 2001, and then we had this weird opportunity. [My wife] still had family here and my brother was here, and in 2003 we moved back. I was a stay-at-home dad for a year or so, and then my first marriage broke up, and in 2004 I started working at Chambar.
How did you come to know [Chambar founders Karri Green-Schuermans and Nico Schuermans]?
I had a mutual friend in Michael Ziff, who’s been in hospitality forever. [He’s now GM of The Restaurant at Poplar Grove in Penticton.] He and I worked at Century Grill. He was like, “Robbie, you need a job. Go talk to Karri.” I went to talk to her in what was then the construction site of the original Chambar, which is now the Devil’s Elbow. I started working for them as a server a month after they opened.
For how long were you a server there?
Three years. I was also producing commercial photoshoots through my connections in Toronto. I was going to start a creative agency, but I’d also expressed interest in opening my own restaurant. Nico had come to look at a defunct restaurant with me, so he and Karri knew I had interest in doing my own thing. Although I’d never been a manager at Chambar, I’d always treated my job like I was, so they saw that I was serious and I had the wherewithal. So, when that space — which is now Jam Café, at 556 Beatty — became available, Karri approached me and said, “Do you want to do this with us as a daytime operation?” That was fortunate, because the bottom dropped out of the world in 2008 [because of the economic crash], especially in advertising. I started working on the construction of Medina in September of 2007, and we started slowly. We opened on January 12, 2008, and for about a year we only did waffles and coffee.
Even though you’d worked in various capacities in restaurants, obviously it’s still a major leap from what you were doing to owning your own place. What made you think that leap was within your abilities?
In hindsight, it probably wasn’t. I grew into it. I’ve always known I’m a hard-working person; I’ve never been afraid to put in the time. I found through working in film, photography and construction that I was confident in the work I did. And I had a buddy to lend me the money.
At what point did you realize Medina was becoming a much greater success than you might have anticipated?
I think the tipping point was probably the [2010 Winter] Olympics. There was a gradual word of mouth, and then the Olympics hit and it was put onto a global stage. And honestly, brunch became a more elevated thing, aside from the greasy spoons and hotel buffets.
When Medina started serving more than waffles and coffee, Nico developed a menu that was Mediterranean themed, with dishes like cassoulet and short-rib fricassée. Did you feel it was risky to offer a menu that was so unprecedented for Vancouver?
I was confident in Nico — he’s a talented guy — so I was never too concerned in that regard. And I think people wanted something different.
Do you think Medina initially benefitted not only from its physical proximity to Chambar but sort of being under the same umbrella?
Karri and Nico had obviously spawned something very special, and Medina for sure benefitted from the momentum that Chambar had created. But at some point — especially when Medina moved [to Richards Street] — we had our own legs.
Two previous restaurants had occupied the Richards Street space. Did it require a major makeover before you opened it to the public?
We were very fortunate in that it had all the mechanical bones: the vent system, the electrical panels, the grease traps and all of the very expensive things you need to open a restaurant. My brother took three months off from film to design it, and he and all of his film contacts helped build it. We were here morning, noon and night.
So, you weren’t concerned about pinning Medina’s success or failure to a space where two previous concepts had bombed?
Sure I was. Scared shitless. I remortgaged my house. It was a very stressful couple of years.
Was this location slammed from day one?
Yes. The first day we opened was terrible; it was very rough service. But after the first week, it was very evident that there was still demand and people knew what Medina was.
Has there ever been a point at which the success of Medina felt overwhelming?
I’ve always been very grateful, even from the time when we were just coffee and waffles. There have been some times when I’ve gone outside and there’s a 100-person lineup on a Saturday and I literally pinch myself. That’s overwhelming, but it’s also pretty awesome.
Have you ever wanted to duplicate the Medina concept somewhere else, or is this enough for you?
If you were to ask people who know me well, they would say I’m a little bit risk averse. I’ve been offered many times — people from California or New York or Saudi Arabia — but I’ve always been cautious of the magic. Coming from Toronto, I’ve always wanted to do something there — I think the concept would work really well there — but I’m busy enough. And I’m not 35; I’m almost 50. I wouldn’t say never, but it would have to be lightning in a bottle again. And the cost of opening and operating a restaurant is now probably three times what it was in 2014.
What’s the difference between your stake in Medina and your stake in Superbaba?
I own 100 percent of Medina and I’m one of four partners in Superbaba. There’s also two partners in Victoria.
What would you say your main contribution is to Superbaba?
I’ve got to give Dallah [El Chami, chef and principal owner] all the credit for Superbaba in terms of its operations and menu. He and Leah [Christ, manager] really have made it work. In the beginning, we [referring to himself and the Tacofino group] were present because Dallah wasn’t in the restaurant business, so we contributed in terms of tendering trades and our suppliers and just our general experience and capital. I’m sure the cache of Medina and Tacofino was important in the beginning, as Chambar’s was for Medina, but Superbaba is its own entity.
What do you think is the most underrated restaurant in Vancouver?
Kishimoto. We have a lot of sushi in Vancouver, but I went to Japan this past April and Kishimoto rivalled anything I had there. And Sawadee: I’ve been dining there since the ’90s and it’s consistently excellent.
(Photo: Hakan Burcuoglu)
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