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Pioneer : Diamond AlmasYou didn't have to live in North Vancouver to know about or to dine on - yep, on - the Seven Seas Floating Restaurant, another fixture of yesterday's Lower Mainland dining scene. With support from his dad, at the age of just 20, Diamond Almas got the Seven Seas up and running in 1959. The restaurant, afloat near the bottom of Lonsdale, had been reborn from a ferry that once ran from the foot of Lonsdale and downtown Vancouver. Definitely part of a food family, Diamond's father and uncle started and owned the King Neptune Seafood restaurant at the foot of eighth in New Westminster. The Seven Seas was the place to go, and service was invariably the best. Diamond used to hire Canadian Pacific Airlines stewards on weekends. They knew their job, and they were also great at steering out of towners into the restaurant. Diamond served a term as Alderman for the City of North Vancouver, another for the district. Among his hundreds of friends, he counted Big frank Ross, the Cave's Ken Stouffer, Frank Baker and Ross Filliponi of the Penthouse as close. Seabuses now ply the route once taken by the ferry that was to become the Seven Seas. Memories of this grand and quirky fixture remain. We welcome Pioneer Diamond Almas into the BC Restaurant Hall of Fame. Interview with Diamond AlmasWhat was your first job in the industry? I worked for my dad at a fish-and-chips shop. I had to peel the prawns and I had to peel the potatoes – I was only about seven at the time. Later on, when I was about 14, I went to work for my uncle at the King Neptune in New Westminster. What is the most memorable moment of your career? That’s a hard one! You get wrapped up with the idea of serving all these very special people but that’s sort of short-lived. One of the things that always plays on your mind when you’re in the business is, “at what point will you feel secure that you really are going to make it?” I remember originally I was told you have to be in business for at least five years. When I got to five years, somebody said, “No, no, you’ve got to get to seven.” Then I recognized that you just have to keep on going and unfortunately the most memorable point for me was the end, when I was fighting with the local council to force me not to continue on in business. That probably was the most memorable point [laughs], the recognition that after 42 years, they couldn’t block me any other way, they had to do it this way, illegally. What advice do you have for people just starting out in the industry? Certainly don’t think that this is going to be easy. One of the things that makes the restaurant business so special is that you have to love it. It’s like a relationship. You give and take and you’re going to have high points and you’re going to have some very low points. You just have to work through them one step at a time. That’s how it works – if you think you’ve got it beat, forget it because that’s when you’re going to get hit. What do you think is the biggest issue facing restaurateurs today? At one time, it used to be location, location, location. Today, we have a very enlightened populace. It’s not only the taste, but it’s where it comes from, and all kinds of different things mixed in there that makes a very high standard. Of course, the critical thing there is how to keep your prices within order and be able to survive, because it you’ve got higher taxes and higher rental costs or what have you, you have to pass it on to the consumer. It’s the age-old problem. What’s the next step for raising the bar in the B.C. foodservice industry? I think at some point, we’re going to have to take a look at what’s happening to our youth. Instead of having something healthy in the schools, they’re serving something unhealthy and you also have the children spending so much time in front of computers or video games that it’s affecting their health and the obesity problem. That has to be attacked and I don’t know how that’s going to apply to the restaurant field but I think we all have an obligation. It would be wonderful if restaurants or the restaurant association could play a major part in that because we are the people who are on the first line with the public and we see the items that come to the forefront first-hand. Interview by Jessica Scharien Click on the images below to start videos Introduction movie shown during the BC Restaurant Hall of Fame Gala, April 2008. Interview and award acceptance speech recorded during the BC Restaurant Hall of Fame Gala, April 2008. |