With the high number of immigrants, tourists and international students from Asia filing into Vancouver at a growing pace, the market has become ripe as the landing spot for another type of import: overseas restaurant franchises.
The latest example of a new restaurant already successful across the Pacific and making its way to Vancouver is the Holy Crab, a Louisiana-style seafood eatery that originated in Indonesia and now counts a number of locations across the Southeast Asian nation.
The Vancouver franchise on Robson Street opened in February and has since developed a steady stream of diners who come for southern U.S. cuisine with a pinch of Southeast Asia. The twist is a unique proposition that’s central to its market strategy, said co-owner/chef Henri William.
“The Asian community here in Vancouver is quite significant, so it was one of the reasons why we decided to come here because we do have a touch of Asian taste in our sauces,” said William, an Indonesian native who moved to Vancouver in 2003. “And in Indonesia, we get our Dungeness crabs and other seafood from B.C. and Alaska, so we thought it’s appropriate to bring what we developed back to the source, so to speak.”
In recent years, a number of Asian food chains have made landings in Vancouver, with many congregating along the stretch of Robson between Denman and Nicola streets. Most have been franchises, but some – like the Holy Crab – are wholly or partially owned branch locations for the holding companies that also own the Asia portion of their business.
Some of the most prominent recent examples include the wildly popular Hokkaido Ramen Santouka, which opened a second store in January on West Broadway after the success of its inaugural Robson location. The restaurant, which often has long lines stretching from its entrance during mealtime, is part of a global franchise network started by ramen chef Hitoshi Hatanaka in Asahikawa, Japan, in the 1980s.
Today, Santouka’s holding company, Ab-out Co., counts 32 locations around the world.
Another big player in overseas franchised restaurants is Taiwanese cuisine, where restaurants like Chef Hung Taiwanese Beef Noodle have entrenched themselves in the Vancouver market with locations in Richmond, West Vancouver and the University of British Columbia. More recently, Taiwanese tea retailer Chatime began expanding into the Lower Mainland with Vancouver and Surrey stores.
For Holy Crab, the restaurant couldn’t just rely on name recognition. The number of people in Vancouver with Japanese or Taiwanese origins far outnumbers the Indonesian-Canadian population. Tourism numbers from Japan and Taiwan also outpaces that from Indonesia, so the Holy Crab has to rely more on new customers. William has incorporated Pacific Northwest touches into the eatery, hired a Canadian architect for its design and joined Vancouver Aquarium’s Ocean Wise sustainable seafood program.
The restaurant’s even adopted mostly decomposable materials, with only the bibs being plastic.
“We have quite a few people from the local Indonesian community who always come and have lunch or dinner, but obviously the community here is not that large,” he said. “So the majority of our customers are new to the concept of Holy Crab. … We saw an opportunity to be a pioneer in some [ways] that’s a little different than what you find elsewhere.” •
