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Ovaltine Cafe
Category: Restaurants Diners Diners [Edit]
251 E Hastings StVancouver, BC V6A 1P2
Neighbourhood: Downtown Eastside
(604) 685-7021
- Price Range:
-
$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- No
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
- Takes Reservations:
- No
- Delivery:
- No
- Take Away:
- No
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- No
- Wi-Fi:
- No
- Alcohol:
- No
- Noise Level:
- Quiet
- Has TV:
- No
- Caters:
- No
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- Yes
9 reviews for Ovaltine Cafe
9 reviews in English
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Review from Rheanna F.
Vancouver, BC
7/18/2011
I'm giving this 5 stars as it is up there in the pantheon of my fave places to eat around the city. I don't give a rat's ass that the servers don't smile at you and the place looks run down. I come here for basic, filling, tasty diner food and i never leave disappointed. I don't need service with a smile, i need service that is fast and doesn't give me food poisoning later. Bingo!
Unlike a few other places that have one particular cheap special on their menu, EVERYTHING here is priced well and i always feel like i get great value for my money. The portions aren't disgustingly huge but that doesn't mean they're tiny! I have yet to finish one of their $3.50 breakfasts, although my bf never has trouble polishing his off (then he'll spend the next hour complaining that he ate too much!) I also never find their items lacking in the good stuff: Their grilled cheese never skimps on the fromage, and their bacon is regular bacon, not that creepy paper-thin stuff you find in a lot of diners.
You'd think i'd have some interesting stories about the place considering how often i'm here and what the Main and Hastings like but... none! Everyone is always on their best behavior and minds their own business. Screw Denny's with their screaming children and people cranky about their lives, i'm going to Cafe Ovaltine where everyone is dead inside or wants to be left alone!
note: The ladies washroom has a sign on the door that says 'out of service until further notice.' The sign has been there since i started going there two years ago.
And one more note: When you use the men's washroom, there is no soap. You have to get some from the pump at the station in the middle of the restaurant where the coffee is. Soap is a big responsibility in the DTES so you've gotta play by their rules i guess.
Can you tell i'm a bit of a regular?Listed in: Below the poverty line and…
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Review from Matthew B.
Vancouver, BC
I can't rate a place above one star, if I'd be afraid to recommend it to my Mother.
David L.'s review basically says it best, "the food is passable, the service is stiff, the clientele is barely parollable."
The food is "eh" but the prices are really low - I guess the fact that you're likely to step on a used needle, get accosted by a transient, mugged, shanked, then left for dead in an alley are all factored into the low prices.
I made the mistake of hitting this place up on "Welfare Wednesday" and I was "privileged" to eat with Vancouver's "less privileged." My friend suggested it (since we were in nearby Chinatown) and I only agreed to go because I'm up to date on my vaccinations.
I seriously don't recommend this place for anyone squeamish, or if you carry more than $20 in your wallet (or a lot of jingling change in your pocket). I'd only go at night if I was an active-duty U.S. Navy SEAL (or whatever the Canuck equivalent is).
FYI: Cash Only. -
Review from David L.
Vancouver, BC
The food is passable, the service is stiff, the clientele is barely parollable and I've yet to visit the washroom out of sheer terror, but despite all it's flaws I LOVE THE OVALTINE CAFE. I try to get here at least once a year, have a burger and a coffee and reminisce in the history of a time that once was. (I also like to think about the time I got dumped here too.)
A huge room with insanely high ceilings, a long low lunch counter and creaky private wood booths that have cracked mirrors in each of them. It's under appreciated by the people that run it, but hey at least it's still here. Long live Ovaltine forever. Someone has to do it.
Oh, and on that note. If it was me. I'd decorate it a bit more in period, play some decent music, stay open later than 4pm and offer a late-night menu, serve cocktails and utilize the little candy shop counter area where you pay your bill, like the original design allotted for to sell cool stuff.
Done. -
Review from Tessa B.
4/11/2011
This place actually wasn't nearly as horrifying as you might think. I was early to meet a friend there, so I was just leaning on a wall outside, and there are some downtown east-side places that actually have a pretty steady stream of decent folk going in and out. . . this was not one of them. It was crackhead after crackhead and I started questioning our decision.
However, it was basically clean, the service was fast, the food definitely passable and super cheap to boot! Definitely worth checking out if just for the novelty. Some patrons shouted "Thanks for nothing, you fat f***ing cow!" on their way out. It's like dinner and theatre all in one! :-D -
Review from Larry L.
11/7/2010 2 photos
Once in awhile I'll come here. Breakfast is cheap and it's an old old institution. You can smell the age and it's a very cool thing.
Be warned, this is not a fancy schmancy diner. This is the original thing that will take you back to the 1920's. Or the future if you happened to watch I-Robot.
My father first took me here in the 70's and I took my kids here in the 90's.
Even if you just come in for a coffee and a pie and experience what it was like back in Chinatown back in the 60's.
It's a piece of history.Listed in: Mojofoodies -Chinatown
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Review from pete d.
Vancouver, BC
6/4/2010
The Ovaltine is your run-of-the-mill greasy spoon, if there's such a thing as a run-of the-mill greasy spoon anymore..
Twenty years ago, when this was still a working class neighbourhood and Vancouver was an affordable city there were lots of little greasy spoons like the Ovaltine, Chinese/Canadian fusion joints with cheap prices, standard fare food, all day breakfasts, bottomless cups of coffee and counter service.
Since then of course, the working class have been replaced with the unable to work class and the along with the ghettoization and soon gentrification of the Downtown Eastside, most of those places have long since disappeared.
But the Ovaltine remains - I'm pretty sure for the most part because with its decor and neon, it's a well used favourite of movie/TV productions looking for a gritty diner - and thank goodness for that.
The Ovaltine is not trendy or ironic or kitschy - it's real.
It is neither a drug front populated by junkies or a retro-boho milleu of hipsters. It's a cheap greasy spoon frequented by old timers living in SROs, working stiffs, cops and courtworkers. It's the kind of place that will allow a regular with no money to go on credit. It is the kind of place that serves processed grilled cheese sandwiches on white bread with pre-frozen steak fries and has liver and onions on the special - god bless 'em.
I'm sure that soon enough the relentless surge of gentrification will see new owners repurpose this tired old diner into some fashionable caricature of itself.. a simulacrum of a greasy spoon for people who don't know any better -- but for now, enjoy the Ovaltine while you can, for what it is... -
Review from Mathieu Y.
Vancouver, BC
10/8/2009
When I was young, daring, and afraid of the homeless, I explored the downtown eastside with a real hesitation. My first time attracted me to the Ovaltine and it's nostalgic exterior. It was a beacon of hope, a promise of an honest 50s diner instead of a downtown remake. I passed many times, curious but not interested.
A fateful afternoon changed it all. A friend moved in to a Chinatown apartment four blocks away. I moved in to the same building a year later. She called me to go exploring our neighborhood and we ended up here. We first noticed flickering fluorescent lights and cracked mirrors. At the booth there was a notice, "minimum $3 purchase to sit in booth, pay at front counter". The glass cases, once holding displays of food, had been filled with various odd knick knacks. Despite high ceilings, and plush, yet tattered, booths, we noted what a neighborhood can do to a "50's diner," sixty years later. Much like the other businesses in Oppenheimer, the Ovaltine was likely once a thriving, popular diner, but through years of neglect, it has fallen to the same dirty barren state as it's neighbors.
I have an obsession with cheap breakfast for those days when you've spent too much money at the bar the night before and are way too hungover to cook. The Ovaltine seemed to qualify with a $3.50 breakfast. The Chinese waitress, cook, and cashier took my order with some difficulty, but at least did not degrade my first experience by insisting I pay up front. The meal arrived quickly, thin and tasteless bacon, eggs cold and overcooked, and toast semi-stale. Despite a willingness to eat nearly anything I couldn't finish the meal. In desperation I order the pie and coffee, a favorite dessert that's difficult to screw up. I got lukewarm coffee and frozen pastry.
A year later, and some stubbornness with the menu, I would say the Ovaltine has some mediocre dishes and some horrible meals. Regardless of what you order it's generally not worth the visit for any reason except the historical content and depressing interior. You may even end up leaving them a tip because you feel sorry for the place.Listed in: Dive Eats
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Review from Jessica O.
Vancouver, BC
7/27/2010 1 Check-in Here
Cheap like borscht, as my Ukrainian grandmother used to say, and one of the best values in the city.
Basic is the name of the game, and I often order a grilled cheese with a side of hashbrowns - it comes to the astonishing price of 3.50
Sure, Hastings and Main may look unsafe to an out of towner, but it is one of the safest places in the lower mainland due to the rich sense of community in the area and VPD headquarters. I pop by here for lunch when I am in the mood to sit at a retro lunch counter, read the paper and admire the historically important authentic neon sign.
Live a little! Get yer greasy eats in a real part of Vancouver's history. -
Review from Mandy R.
5/19/2011
I love this place. The food looks like something your mom would make you on a rainy Sunday afternoon if your mom was trailer trash and you were an unplanned pregnancy. The bathrooms are repulsive. The service is mediocre and the waitress always seems surprised (not quite annoyed, but definitely surprised) if you try to get a second (or third, or fourth) cup of coffee out of her. This is a great place to go alone on a rainy day and just feel depressed and romantic as hell.
