DJ MacKinnon Writing

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Joe’s Cafe closing to mixed reviews

Before there was Starbucks, there was Joe’s Cafe

But like the fading rainbow on the William Street side , its star too is fading – its owner returned to his roots in Portugal, the tables worn, the floor scratched and scuffed, and the stuffing out of chairs. And after nearly 50 years, Joe’s is closing at the end of October.

But the bedrock of its clientele keep coming to Joe’s – “their” place – even in the waning days. And like it has for years, banter across the room is about people they know and how the soccer season is shaping up. While in the original days the clientele was mostly Portuguese, relative newcomers are from North Africa and West Asia, reflecting the changing culture of the neighbourhood.

Owner, Joe Antunes said he wanted to replicate an older Portueguese style neighbourhood cafe when he opened the place – originally called the Continental – in 1976. But the area has gone through its own metamorphosis since then and Joe’s looks like something from the old Commercial Drive before gourmet coffee and hand-made toys started drawing customers from across the city, keen to sample more rarified goods.

The decor in Joe’s is an idiosyncratic melange of the owner’s memories and passions. Posters of bull-fighters and a pair of bullhorns cover the south wall – a nod to Joes’ earlier bull-fighting days – along with a celebrity poster of Frank Sinatra, and pictures of Joe and his customers over the years. Even a calendar from a local Portuguese realtor and a Winter Solstice card from the Carnival Band.

“I never went in until today,” said one young woman who recently arrived from Calgary. “There were always just a bunch of old guys hanging around there and I didn’t feel comfortable going in,” she said, referring to the tables of older men both inside and out.

“But now I’m kinda sad it’s going to be closing.”

Yet Joe’s is not without its scandals. In the mid-1990s, many progressives in East Vancouver who’d been loyal to Joe’s cafe for many years, began to boycott the place after Joe kicked out a couple of lesbians who were necking in the back room.

And even today some still won’t go.

“Good riddance I say, “ said a woman who used to work at Britannia high school when asked about the incident. “I don’t agree with that.”

But for most, those memories have faded or the stories were never known in the first place, and now Joe’s has seen a steady stream of of old and new customers making a pilgrimage to the place, one of the original sports bars in town, because of a hand-lettered sign on the window announcing that it is closing.

“I met the father of my children here”, said Denise Clarke of Port Moody who stopped into Joe’s on her way home from downtown. “So this place has a very special meaning to me.”

“Joe introduced us to this kind of coffee (espresso),” Clarke said sipping her demi-tasse. “And it’s still the best.”

Party at Joe’s Cafe 8 pm to 11 pm on Saturday Oct 26, 2024

1150 Commercial Drive (at William)

Featured

The Great Big Fire in Vancouver June 13, 1886

Up until the 1940s in Vancouver, the anniversary date of the great big fire of 1886 was a civic event and remembered by many who were still alive at the time. An interesting thing about language and how it changes over time comes up in my mind every June when I think about Vancouver’s Great Fire of 1886. I always wondered why people called it “great”. Wasn’t it a catastrophe affecting every single inhabitant? Indeed it was, but I eventually realized that people were using the word “great” to indicate that it was big – not that it was wonderful. I don’t think people use “great” to mean big very much anymore except in poetic writing. But let me know what you think.

In the meantime, here is a column I wrote about the fire that was printed in the Vancouver Sun newspaper in 1997.

I remember the editor called me the morning it came out because she’d changed my first sentence and had made a mistake calculating the number of years since the fire had occurred. It was 111 years, not 101 as was changed in my piece. But I couldn’t really do anything about it so there the error stands in perpetuity – a mockery to my numeracy 😉 . Incidentally I also just noticed that my last name is spelled wrong on this piece. Oh well – could be worse, right?

Enjoy!

Beckwoman’s closing – Online Auction coming

Anyone who ever went into Beckwoman’s Hippie Emporium store on E. Hastings Street in Vancouver, or in earlier years in the heart of Commercial Drive, knew and loved this quirky place of disco balls and fairy bells, macrame, hammocks, Morrocan slippers and musical instruments from around the world – most brought by Bonnie from the 1970s as she made art and slept in her studio to make it possible for her to travel to all the places she collected her wares.

With unpredictable hours despite the sign on the door but accessible by text, Beckwoman would sell you everything from a lapis lazuli ring, craft a sculpture of yourself from a photo, or make alterations on a headband from Guatemala.

Despite a jumble of treasures squeezed into the space, crooked hand-written price tags and signs that would make window designers cringe, the place could give you hours of fascination, looking at pieces big and small in the display cases ranged along the wall.

Bonnie Beckman was an adventurous, creative soul who was committed to bringing messages of peace and love through art and crafts from around the world long before mass marketing, easier travel, and Crate and Salvage came along.

But now Beckwoman’s appears to be gone. I ‘d heard last week that Bonnie Beckman (aka Beckwoman) had recently died or was gravely ill. This afternoon when I walked by, the lights were lit too brightly and people were moving things around inside. Something had happened.

I knocked on the door and someone from Rest Easy Auctions and Removals came to the door. He told me that Bonnie Beckman had died but I have not confirmed that. It looks possible, or imminent.

Beckwoman’s and Bonnie Beckman herself were institutions in the formative years of Commercial Drive as it established itself as a community of political activists, co-operatives, and artists.

Let’s tell her stories and keep her memory alive.

All her myriad wonders will go on sale in an online auction starting mid-December 2025

RIP Bonnie xo

Time to reflect – Easing the Pressure

When people ask me what I like best about homeschooling I always say “Time”

Time to stop and investigate a concept or an approach that doesn’t click. Time to figure out what is the next logical step in learning. Time to take care of relationships and misunderstandings. Time to dream and think. Time to contemplate.

Richard Rudd, creator of the Gene Keys calls contemplation a gift,

“our true depth lies beyond the domain of objective understanding. To know what we really are, we will have to go beyond the mind itself. This is the purpose of the Art of Contemplation”

Ironically, in the conventional school setting, there is a lot of time left-over in the course of a full school day. Time spent waiting for others to understand concepts or finish an assignment. Time where children will naturally want to socialize and when, in conventionalways of thinking, children become “disruptive” – a negative concept that punishes play and sociability.

No doubt it is frustrating for a public school teacher to work under pressure to teach a homogenous package of lessons to groups of children with varying styles of learning, degrees of aptitude, and emotional literacy. Disruptiveness only adds to the pressure in this kind of setting. But as a homeschooling parent, if you’re able to set a different course, I bet you will find yourself and your children to be happier and be able to take the time to figure out when they aren’t.

In my next post I’ll look into the value of flow

Time to reflect – Easing the Pressure

When people ask me what I like best about homeschooling I always say “Time”

Richard Rudd, creator of the Gene Keys calls contemplation a gift,

“our true depth lies beyond the domain of objective understanding. To know what we really are, we will have to go beyond the mind itself. This is the purpose of the Art of Contemplation”

In my next post I’ll look into the value of flow

Thinking about Homeschooling?

If you’re thinking about homeschooling but feeling overwhelmed about how to do it or even approach it, I can help.

Much of our culture is set up to make parents feel incapable of homeschooling their kids.

Parents worry that their kids won’t learn anything, that they’ll become lazy, never get to university, or that they’ll live in the basement for the rest of their lives.

The result is that most children still go to conventional school settings with its environment of charged emotions, bullying, and ultimately – conformity.

Knowing your own child as you do – what they’re curious about, excited by, and capable of – you are far better resourced than you may realize to make your child’s unique learning a success.

I’d be happy to tutor on specific primary grade subjects or – my preference – work as a mentor in collaboration with you and your child on projects that elicit joyful, engaged learning, and then customize reporting obligations to reflect it.

Contact me for my offerings, credentials, and rates through djmackinnontutoring@gmail.com

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