Jericho’s Beginnings – The Cafe
Jericho Cafe -3689 W 4th Ave, a spot that was once the famous cafe little Budapest back in— In the 60’s, the restaurant was an oasis for neighbourhood folk, with a piano, and some live music, always serving incredible wholesome European food. The owner/server was big handsome Hungarian man named Joseph. He ran the room alone, serving 8 to 10 tables; he was always busy- so sometimes service was slow, at one speed, giving gracious, professional service, if you were in a hurry, you did not bother going in. In the kitchen a team of two older aproned- Hungarian women, cooking on home style stoves, putting out amazing traditional Hungarian food. Breakfast was outstanding. eggs, sausage, potatoes, rye bread. Big stainless coffee percolators brewing coffee, the never endling flow.
Jericho got involved with the restaurant when it was called Pasquale’s, the same building as little Budapest, a restaurants life had finished so the Landlord took over the restaurant, ran a pizza concept for a few years. West fourth avenue was going through major changes, this part of west fourth became a freeway, all destination traffic, little walk-in traffic, except if weather was nice. The concept was to fill the huge breakfast gap- an all-day breakfast joint- servicing Jericho/Point Grey Kits.
Jericho Cafe became a West 4th avenue staple back in 1995 and not just for the food, which was amazing! It was a place where the community gathered. There were music nights and cabaret nights, where connections were made between artists of different disciplines. This was Steve’s vision. He was always concocting something in his mental kitchen – the next event that combined great food, drink and art. Jericho Cafe will always hold a special place in my heart as a culinary and cultural oasis.
There was a grouping of incredible breakfast places in the heart of kits, like Cafe Zen and Sophie’s cosmic cafe, but very few West of Macdonald. Serving breakfast all day became the cornerstone of that spot, it was the income centre for that location for a long time until – La Quercia opened in 2008 with traditional Italian food and won best new restaurant, right off the start.
Our Role
Jericho has forty years of experience in researching, growing, cooking, and selling food products. By working closely with chefs, restaurateurs, growers, wholesalers, and brokers, we’ve identified a lack of quality specialized products in mainstream distribution channels.
The Pandemic exposed serious weaknesses in the global food system, revealing its unsustainable nature and lack of preparedness for disruption. Today’s industrial food systems focus on specialization and consolidation for efficiency, but this also increases risk and instability.
Jericho connects farmers with wholesalers, retailers, and restaurants, promoting sustainable, organic products at fair prices and educating consumers about the value of local agriculture. We strive to reintegrate these products into the mainstream market through information sharing across the food industry.
Our Experience
Jericho brings 40 years experience as a cook/chef from the restaurant business down to the farm. We have been farming and landscaping for over 20 years, we approach landscaping from a sustainable Market Garden ideology, combined with my culinary experience – we will find the best design solutions for your sustainable market gardening needs.
We bring knowledge of culinary food trends and years of working with food from kitchen to the garden paradigm, always searching for the best seeds. We are always looking to have great relationship with farms from the island and Okanagan, always looking for great quality food. We specialize in Tomato and chilies and always looking for great tomato and chili products.
Cove Garden
Taking what I learned from Dunbar & Ganges Gardens and used it to manage a restaurant and resort Market Garden for the Cove in West Kelowna on an old horse ranch owned by the Bennett family. The main gardener had left without notice, so I came into the situation and looked after seedlings, a huge array of tomato varieties about 300 seedlings in all. I developed landscaping and chefs garden and was liaison between kitchen and farm. I hired staff and began growing season. I amended fields and created ideology of garden and decisions about how and what to grow.
Ganges Harbour House – Saltspring
I worked as a breakfast cook and farm worker and was involved in transplanting the raspberry patch, and harvesting food, working with kitchen and garden.
Learned more about sustainable agriculture and the vitality of a market garden and how much food can be produced on a small patch of land.
Dunbar Garden
Dunbar was my first major foray into Urban Gardening, the garden lab-exploring soil and drainage, old school weeping tile systems of moving water around a garden. Working with Japanese style rock work and creating a herb garden, five years of landscaping and until year three- a complete sustainable system, using only what was on site, did not spend any money for three years. Year four and five, I even sold produce to a chef friend.
