Sarah: Drop Your Anchors at Portside

Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarallin

This past Sunday I somehow lucked out and was tasked with going to the media preview of Portside, the latest venture by Mark Brand.

Located in Gastown, Portside hopes to bring East coast pub culture to Vancouver. Right off the bat they had my interest, as Vancouver isn't exactly known as the most friendly place.

With a name like Portside, it's quite obvious that they're going for a nautical vibe, and there are all sorts of cool artifacts to check out in the space. On top of being a bar, Portside also has a stage for live music acts, filling a void of medium-sized venues in the city.

Some highlights of the night, including me stuffing my face (as per usual)

The menu sticks to the basics, but is definitely a step up from your average drunk food. Highlights include the pulled pork, and hot dogs. Drinks are definitely the main attraction though, as Porside features an impressive 24 beers on tap, with 6 selections each from: local, Canadian, American, and international. Needless to say,  I didn't get a chance to try them all, but that will certainly be a goal of mine in the coming weeks.

Overall, Portside has an awesome vibe, and great food and drinks to back it up. I'm looking forward to checking out a live show and getting closer to my beer goal.

IKEA Richmond

The new IKEA Richmond opens tomorrow!

I had the chance to check out the new space (conveniently located next to their previous Richmond location) and was thoroughly impressed.

Not only was the media event excellent, but the sheer size of the store was insane. The old Richmond IKEA was 201,285 ft^2; the new one practically dwarfs that, coming in at a colossal 334,004 ft^2! What I found to be particularly interesting about this, is that the old store was only able to showcase approximately 3,000-4,000 of the items that were in stock/in the catalogue. However, the actual IKEA stock clocked in nearly 10,000 items.

IKEA Canada has been one of the leaders of greening business in Canada, having been named one of the country's Greenest Employers 3 years in a row by Mediacorp. In fact, if you think about it, IKEA was actually the first Canadian retailer to stop the use of plastic bags.

Some other neat sustainable facts about the new Richmond location:

• it is 40% more efficient than the last round of stores that were built in the early 2000s (I'm looking at you Coquitlam)
• it has 'parking'spaces for 100 bikes, as opposed to the 12 at the old location
• they will be using environmentally friendly cleaning solvents and other products
• there will be improved waste/recycling throughout the entire property

If you head to IKEA Richmond tomorrow, there are some sweet deals!