Thursday, March 8, 2007

The Northend Diner is gone


After moving to the northend of Halifax a few years ago, I began to love the Northend Diner. Great food, wonderful service and a great price. It was just down the road, and they just started serving all day breakfast. Sadly, it has burned to the ground. I never knew I was so attached, until it was gone. Blah. Above is a picture I took tonight. From what I understand you can watch a YouTube video of the fire. I will not.

4 comments:

Francis Wooby said...

I feel your pain...sorta.

Iqaluit's own "beloved" greasy spoon burned down not too long ago. I never went in there, but apparently it was a pretty...unique blue collar place. At lunch and break times municipal vehicles like garbage trucks and sewer pumpers would line the street outside.

The "Snack Burger" was the only thing I ever had there. It was small and uninspiring. I never tried the poutine, though, which I bet would have been good. I only found out after it burned down that it was run by Quebecers and that poutine was on the menu.

The bulk of their money was made through delivery. They had a fleet of four delivery trucks who could be seen perpetually on the streets of Iqaluit, 24-7. I suspect this had a lot to do with the fact that they delivered cigarettes. Smokers are weird like that--desperately addicted but too short of breath to walk to the store.

As a former chain smoker, I remember order pizza on more than one occasion more for the cigarettes I could get delivered with it, than for the food...which was a happy bonus.

Anyway, this is a full out pointless rant now. Here's a link to a story about it if you're at all interested.

http://www.iqaluitonline.com/news/iqaluit-news/snack-y2k-burns-down.html

Francis Wooby said...

Crap, I don't think that link worked. Just go to www.iqaluitonline.com and the story is there in the news section.

Canadian Economist said...

Gee Francis, thanks for the equally depressing story. Does it have a happy ending? Will they rebuild a bigger and greaser Snack Burger? I have yet to hear any plans for the Northend Diner 2 - but I remain optimistic.

Francis Wooby said...

Why yes, as a matter of fact the current owners of the Snack (not the former one who was charged with drug trafficking a few years ago) immediately vowed to rebuild.

Popular speculation is that the new Snack will be a lot smaller, as larger buildings are expensive to maintain up here and they do the majority of their business through delivery.