Out to Lunch: Business Dining in Vancouver

Image by: Clinton Hussey

With expense budgets slashed and time at a premium, the days of the three-martini-and-steak business lunch are over. Or are they? A report from the gastronomic trenches on the state of “meet-and-eats.”

The popularity of Mad Men – the TV drama about a hard-living ’60s-era ad exec and his exploits in and out of the office – has stoked a certain nostalgia recently for deals struck on handshakes at three-martini-and-steak lunches. The show is a reminder not only that there used to be much more play at work, but also just how fast the business lunch itself has evolved.

Jaw-dropping price tags associated with power lunches still hit the headlines every now and again, from Hong Kong businessman Zhao Danyang’s $2-million bid at an auction last year to nosh with Warren Buffett to the $77,000 wine bill rung up by five British investment bankers at Gordon Ramsay’s Petrus restaurant in London in 2002 (the food portion, a rather pedestrian $700, was comped by the restaurant).

But generally, the age-old social institution is in a state of decline these days. The increased drive to perform and the squeeze on time is part of the reason, with Canadians’ traditional workday lunch now down to 40.7 minutes, according to a 2005 Statistics Canada survey. Then there’s the ongoing crunch on corporate expense accounts and the legacy of tax-credit cuts for business entertainment (in the mid-’90s, the Canada Revenue Agency reduced the limitation on these expenses from 80 per cent to the current 50 per cent).

Indeed, British Columbians looking to “meet and eat” these days are more likely to schedule a coffee, a light lunchtime bite or a breakfast (when brains are, supposedly, most alert and the whole meeting can be wrapped up before the start of the working day). As part testament to this change, a number of high-end establishments – such as Vancouver’s Cioppino’s Mediterranean Grill & Enoteca and CinCin – have ceased their lunchtime service in the past year, with some of that business going to the growing array of mid-priced, quick-prep restaurants (think Cactus Club, Milestones and Earls).

But more and more, business people are foregoing face-to-face meetings altogether, relying instead on video-conferencing, social media (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter), BlackBerries and iPhones to stay connected. Why meet for lunch when you can do business – and keep up to date with associates – through these channels?

That’s the take of Mark Wolverton, the president and CEO of North American operations for Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics. Wolverton’s career has bridged the halcyon days of all-afternoon business lunches in his former role as vice-president and director of Vancouver-based Wolverton Securities, when he remembers joining much of the city’s business fraternity at Trader Vic’s, Bombay Bicycle Club, Terminal City Club and the Vancouver Club. “The ability to consummate a deal in the past,” he explains, “was as much about the clicking of the personalities as it was about the fundamentals of the deal.”

But today – with deal terms negotiated down to every word and individuals judged much more on their practical experience – it’s no longer the right framework for him. “I value face-to-face meetings, but, personally, I don’t rate business lunches because I find they generally take up too much time in the day,” he says. “Some lunch invitations can leave you trapped in a presentation in which you have no interest. I like to make sure I am aware of all the angles before agreeing to it.”

There are, however, around 10 venues in Vancouver where the upper echelons of the business world, and their proteges, still very much “do lunch.” When Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell were looking to buy in Vancouver’s upscale Shaughnessy neighbourhood a few years ago, realtor Malcolm Hasman took the celebrity duo to Il Giardino, Umberto Menghi’s famed restaurant on Hornby Street, to seal the $3-million deal over lunch.

• Tags
  • lucy hyslop, 
  • Vancouver Restaurants