This Commerce Life

Burgoo Restaurant's Justin Joyce on 24 Years of Comfort Food & Vancouver's Evolving Food SceneWe had an amazing conversation with Justin, owner of the four Burgoo restaurant locations in Vancouver, who joined us despite dealing with a power outage and a sick dog. What started as a discussion about his restaurants quickly evolved into a deep dive about the challenges facing independent operators in today's market.The Burgoo StoryWe learned how Justin's path to restaurants began with a detour from university. Originally headed to study English literature at the University of Alberta, he stopped in Calgary and met a mentor who offered to lend him money to open a restaurant in Vancouver. At 21, with no stress and plenty of optimism, he made the leap and opened the Funky Armadillo in the early '90s before eventually developing the Burgoo concept in 2001.What struck us was how Burgoo started as purely comfort food - originally serving only soups and stews in two sizes: "giant and enormous." They didn't even hav