Bandidas

New Things at Bandidas

2011-06-01T14:51:00.000-07:00

This is Jackie, and oddly my first post.

So what new things you ask?

1. Well, five of us painted the restaurant in the middle of the night. Midnight until 8am! Let me tell you that despite being so productive, I still felt like a dirtbag when the birds start singing at dawn. I did learn that a lot people jog at 6am in my neighbourhood. I also learned that I am old, and it takes me a long time to recover from an all-nighter. Thank you Penny, Kevin, Evan & Aiyana for being so tough and efficient.

The colours we choose with help from our colour-consultant-tattooing-neighbour, Jessica Pare (jessicaparetattoos.com) at Eastside Tattoos Parlour, are turquoise, brown & cream with black trim. We were trying to make the restaurant look more cosy. Please do not look too closely as we were tired, and on a time constraint. In fact, we had minimal lighting to see our mistakes. Which brings us to the second change at Bandidas.

2. The light fixtures. Another lesson I learned from this fateful night was that you should not paint and change the light fixtures at the same time. And, that when changing the light fixtures in the middle of the night, you should bring a headlamp and be prepared with alternative lighting. Luckily we had bike lights to see the wiring. The lights are up and look beautiful. They are old antique, diamond-shaped beauties. Pictures will follow. Thank you to Mark Ogilive for the late night electrical assistance. Mark came to install the lights after a play and was dressed in stunning attire while the rest of us were in sweat pants.

3. New hours. You can now enjoy these cosy renovations for longer periods of time. We are open until:

1am on Friday and Saturday
Midnight - Sunday to Thursday
Opening at 9am everyday

4. A few new drinks will be available starting soon, including a ginger margarita, and a dark & stormy. I know...dangerous and delicious with the new hours.

Pictures to Follow.

Thanks for reading,

Jackie

Co-owner of Bandidas

The Intriguing Tale of Our Fabulous Bar

2011-02-08T13:42:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time (I believe it was 1999), there was a man named Tim. Tim was perusing a lumber yard.

He came across the precise piece of wood that he needed for the project he was working on. It happened to be sitting on top of an enormous piece of Douglas Fir. Tim expressed interest in it, and the Lumber Man related a sad tale in which a restaurant had ordered the piece for their bar, but had decided against it. There were too many knots in the wood, the Restaurant Owner had said. The incredible piece of wood had been abandoned and left for scrap.

The Lumber Man saw the gleam in Tim's eye and offered him the piece of wood for a ridiculously low price. Tim sighed and turned the offer down, as he had no real need for a 13 foot slab of Douglas Fir, beautiful though it was.

Alas, our story does not end here.

Driving home, Tim could not stop thinking about it. He did not need the wood now, he told himself, but surely someday a use would present itself? Before he could make it home, he turned around and went back to the Lumber Man to buy a beautiful piece of wood that he knew he didn't need.

Tim stored the thing-of-beauty in his friend's barn for 8 whole years until he heard that his beloved daughter, Aiyana, was planning to open a restaurant.

"Why, I've got the perfect thing for you," he said.

Tim Hicks personally delivered the wood, having sanded it by hand for hours until the wood shone. Upon delivery, he stayed to build the bar himself. In fact, he stayed on to contribute weeks of help throughout the whole building process of Bandidas.

And the gorgeous piece of wood, finally coming to rest amongst people who adored it, existed happily ever after.

The End.

A Fresh Start

2010-12-02T13:53:00.000-08:00

It was a beautiful, snowy afternoon, and one of the Bandidas decided it was finally time to make a fresh blog entry...

I'm Renee. I've been serving at Bandidas for over a year now, and I'm really happy here. I was living in Victoria and coming over to Van every other weekend to hang out. Bandidas quickly became an integral part of every visit, because I loved the food and the atmosphere was so relaxed and friendly. It wasn't very long before I threw my hands up in the air and said, "That's it! I'm moving to Vancouver and I'm going to get a job at Bandidas!" It turned out that my timing was spot on, and now I spend nearly all my time here. Its funny how things just work out sometimes.

I came to Vancouver knowing only a handful of people, but after a year of working at Bandidas, I've really begun to feel like a part of the community--of the restaurant and of the neighborhood. After years of traveling and drifting around, it feels so good to feel like I actually belong somewhere. I learn new things from our lovely customers every day, and I run into them all over town. I've never worked anywhere that catered to such kind, genuine and interesting people, which, as a server, makes the workplace infinitely more enjoyable. That may sound cheesy, but I mean every carefully chosen word of it.

I'm a Sagittarius. I'm terribly accident prone. I love to write and sing and make people laugh. I really do like long walks on the beach, and as far as snow is concerned, I hope we get more because there is something so romantic about it.

The Taqueria is particularly cozy these days, certainly warmer than my ridiculous little apartment, and I find I've been hanging out here in my free time even more since the first big chill of the season. I know the food will be healthy, hot and delicious. I know I'll run into people and have a laugh. I know I'll be able to get cozy and get some writing done, its a little hobby of mine.

In fact, our two marvelous ringleaders, Jackie and Aiyana, have asked me to start keeping this ol'blog updated, so you can expect to hear more from us, more frequently. If you have any suggestions for blog posts, or if there is anything you'd love to know about us, let us know!
Muchas Gracias!

2010-06-09T20:18:00.000-07:00

Check out this charity we are supporting. It's a bike event!! We love to support many such things.

Calling all cyclists - Family fun CAP AIDS Bike-a-thon on Saturday, June 19, Trout Lake

CAP AIDS, a registered Canadian charity, is organizing a 20km bike a thon along BC Parkway on Saturday, June 19 (registration at 9:15 am) at the south end of Trout Lake. Please register your Team or individually online at: https://secure.e2rm.com/registrant/LoginRegister.aspx?EventID=43426&LangPref=en-CA

We are fundraising specifically for vocational training opportunities for AIDS youth orphans in Uganda and Ethiopia. Every dollar raised will be matched 3-1 by the Canadian government (CIDA). After-ride Refreshments and Entertainment by Tambai Marimba and African Stages youth dancers. Win a custom-made bicycle from Our Community Bikes and other great prizes from our sponsors!

For more information contact Lindsay Marsh, Bike-a-Thon Coordinator, at bike2capaidsvancouver@gmail.com

Brunch every day!

2009-04-25T10:22:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts. Things are more than overwhelming. But, because us Bandidas don't feel like we have been working enough hours, we decided to open for brunch every day now. We both take a day off each week, and both notice that there are not tons of fantastic places open for breakfast during the week. So looks like we better be the ones. We have changed our whole kitchen around (closed for a day in order to get it all set up for ease of use). We are ready to rock. Starting Monday, we will serve Breakfast/Brunch every day from 10 to 3.

Chalk Board Ideas

2009-02-01T02:31:00.000-08:00

OK, so we asked our very good friend Mark, designer of one of our most beautiful bathrooms, for his ideas on the chalk board wall. His idea: put up a book in "chapters". Put up a section of the story every month or so. The giving tree? The Lorax (a good environmentalist's story)? How cool would that be? Would people read it? Maybe something less known, so that people would look forward to the next section.

In other news, we had our best day ever today. The restaurant was full for most of the day, and really busy for long stretches. The coolest part is watching how much more smoothly busy nights are going. We are getting better at what we do. Our employees know their positions, and are getting quicker. We communicated better as a team. Our systems are solidifying.

Still, it blows me away to look out at the restaurant in the middle of a busy dinner rush, and realize that we are running a restaurant, a real restaurant. . . not sure what else to say about that.

Photography Exibition Opening

2009-02-01T02:25:00.000-08:00

This will be a brief post to announce the photo opening we will be holding at the restaurant February 4th at 7 pm. There will be a special on wine. The photos on the wall are amazing, and worth giving some time to.
The exhibit is by rev b pandemonium. The photos are of the Vancouver downtown eastside.
Hope to see many of you there.

Update

2009-01-23T00:09:00.000-08:00

Bandidas is now in full swing. We have had some nice busy days, and a couple of slow days here and there. It's a funny balance: stressed if it's busy, stressed if it's slow. On the busy days, we can't help but ask ourselves where all these people come from. How do they all know? It it so rad to serve so many people--tacos and nachos galore in the evenings, and brunch on the weekends. At the end of the weekend, we are bagged. The days are still too long for Jacks and Ai. We gotta figure out how to get employees to cover us enough so that we can have a bit more time off. In that way, those couple of slow days days were nice. Gave us a bit of time to get our feet back under us--to file the huge heap of papers that was growing on the desk, to move a few steps closer to getting all the permits we need, to organize the kitchen a bit better, to catch up on our food prep. It's amazing how much food we have to cook. I guess that's what happens when you serve food professionally. But we are still getting used to the proportions of the project.

Here are a couple of photos from our grand opening party:

This is one of the most popular seats in the house. Two rocking chairs at the small table in the window, well decorated with our favorite lamp and a live orchid. We got this lamp for free in a deal for some used restaurant chairs. At first we weren't sure about it. Then Mike suggested we use it as a kind of central decorative theme. It has kind of become that, and does well to draw people in from the street.

Here's a nice shot of our service station, where we make all the tacos. That's a bottle of our house-mad vegan sour cream in the foreground, and a nice platter of tacos in the back.

And here's a beauty shot of our chalk board menu. We painted this cool chalk board paint directly onto the wall, and a friend put up the menu for us, with this beautiful printing. Jacks and Ai could never make it look like that. Now we are trying to figure out what to do with this space though. Our innitial plan was to have a counter service style restaurant. But somehow that just didn't suit the place. It turns out to be a place where people hang out more, which we love. But hanging out and standing in a line at the bar every time you want to get another coffee or order more food just don't go together. So Bandidas has officially become a table service restaurant. Lucky Ai--I finally get to learn how to wait tables. It's so much easier to learn when I only have myself and Jacks to answer to. . . Anyway, I digress. Since we have become table service. We have moved to laminated paper menus at the tables. Now the question becomes what to do with this chalk board space. We like it, but the menu doesn't need to be on the wall. Should we paint over it in white to match the rest of the walls and pretend it never happened? Should we write a note to the people up there? Should we just post our drink and dessert menu there? Hmm. Any ideas?

Idea

2009-01-12T12:49:00.000-08:00

At our grand opening party, we didn't sell food, but just brought out platters of food for everyone to eat. Guests bought drinks, but enjoyed the food for free. At the end of the night both Jacks and I commented how nice this style of service is. We catered a number of parties over the summer, at which we served the food in this same manner. Somehow people seem to enjoy the food more when it is a surprise, when the food is more of a community activity than a personal plate ordered. So... here is our idea, our less conventional restaurant model: do this style every night. At the end patrons can pay what they feel they ate. Maybe it wouldn't work for breakfast. Maybe it would be a hard way to manage a restaurant. We do of course realize that there would be those who took advantage of such a system. It would be a bit of a scary business model to jump into full throttle. So maybe at first we will start by having an event like this once a month or so--see how it goes.
Any ideas?

Open!

2009-01-11T00:45:00.000-08:00

We are open, and the first week has been a real success. We have had amazing support from friends and community members coming to check out our restaurant--bringing friends for dinner, spreading the word. We have also seen lots of new faces--people from the neighborhood who have watched us preparing to open. Friday night the restaurant was totally full with a line at the bar for hours. It feels so good to hear the sounds of people eating and laughing and talking in this space we have created.
Now to work out the kinks. Step one: hire more staff, or schedule our current staff for more hours. Step two: Jacks and Ai take a tiny bit of time off--at least a few hours to sleep or something.
Pictures will come soon, we promise. For now bear with us while we get our feet on the ground.

A few more pictures

2009-01-02T22:11:00.001-08:00

The ceiling tiles are down, hazardous materials suits are put away. Now just to get that t-bar structure down.

Jacks paints the high high ceiling (and practices her ballet moves)

Morgan and Jackie carry the ladders from the rental shop to the restaurant. So strong!

Bandidas

2008-12-28T15:26:00.000-08:00

By the way, for those of you just signing in, welcome to Bandidas Taqueria, the newest, freshest, yummiest new Mexican joint on the Drive.
Bandidas is a Mexican restaurant with a fresh and healthy menu. We incorporate traditional Mexican elements in vegetarian and vegan dishes. We hand-make fresh corn tortillas for your tacos, just like they do in Mexico. You can check out some selections from our menu, and read a bit more about us at www.bandidastaqueria.com
After working on this project for more than a year, it's time to open. As you can see from the pictures, we are in the final stages of construction. We are looking forward to opening our doors. Our goal, since the beginning, has been to build a place where people can come together, eat good, healthy, high quality food, share drinks and good company. We have wanted to build a restaurant that is not only a restaurant, but a community gathering place that all of you can be a part of. Come by for tacos or nachos, drop by for a beer, join us for an amazing brunch on the weekend, or bring in your computer and do your work at the bar. (Yes, there is free wireless). Post your events on the community calendar, bring books for the lending library, host an event in our space. We look forward to all of it!

2008-12-28T12:46:00.000-08:00

Under Construction Yo!

2008-12-28T12:03:00.000-08:00

Things are busy around the shop, getting ready to open in 9 days. We hear there is underground betting on when the doors will actually open. The plan: January 5th. The popular vote: January 12th. . .
Walls are painted. Bar is in. Kitchen is in progress. The bathroom decorating competition is under way. Two teams are competing, turning the two tiny washrooms into true art experiences. The winner will earn rights to naming a menu item? How will we convince people to hang out in the dining room? Stay tuned for voting days, when washrooms are complete and you can help pick the winner.
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