Modern cafe closes!

[limbery]

Just heard that another downtown restaurant has gone under. Sad state of affairs...

[IslandStyle123]

No surprise. It was nice, and had a great ambiance. Nanaimo prefers stank rat-holes with plasma screens playing the latest UFC fight.

Thanks Scott for trying to bring some class to a town in desperate need of it.

[greycam]

I won't disagree that the Modern had great ambiance but in the last 2 years service, food and drink quality drastically went downhill.

We stopped going on a weekly basis because of this. A lot of customers felt this way.

[PaulStevens]

http://www.nanaimobulletin.com/news/165739446.html

[MDH]

... Let me just state for the record, I know two different people from the culinary school (Students, before anyone runs off and starts asking questions) who told me that the Modern Cafe was not being managed very well, and that they walked away from the job with negative experiences.

It's not that I disliked them. They had a good chocolate mousse, but it was hit and miss. A location needs to learn what it does well and eliminate what it doesn't do well. I ordered a salmon lox wrap there once. There was no sauce or cream cheese on it. But the clam chowder it came with was fantastic, not overly fatty or salty, spiced generously. The lox was okay quality at best. We haven't been back.

[ebusinesstutor]

No surprise. It was nice, and had a great ambiance. Nanaimo prefers stank rat-holes with plasma screens playing the latest UFC fight.

Thanks Scott for trying to bring some class to a town in desperate need of it.

Yes, I walk out of restaurants with large TV screens. If I want to watch TV, I will stay at home. If I am out, I want ambience and to enjoy the conversation with my dinner partner.

[Karenwh1]

I can provide my opinion on what went wrong with the Modern Cafe....

Their menu!

After many years of being fans of the restaurant, the new owners & new chef changed the menu. We had trouble finding anything on the menu of interest to us. Why change a good thing?!

I used to love the previous Mac & Cheese with crab cakes. I never wanted to try the new version because it included Prosciutto. They removed my all-time favourite dinner item: the stuffed Chicken Breast (I think it was called Chicken Supreme). There was a great appetizer that included an Indian bread with goat cheese & fresh tomatoe salsa on the side that got removed from the menu. There were some great desserts that got removed.

I wanted to try the Haddock & chips another night, but they were out of Haddock! So I ordered the ribs. Big disappointment! Unfortunately the restaurant ended up with nothing on the menu that appealed to us, so we just stopped going.

It had been our favourite restaurant, and I think it's important for the owners to know we we used to travel from Duncan to go there because we loved it so much! We used to take out of town guests there to show it off. Now that we live in Nanaimo we were super happy to have it closer to home, but now we've become super disappointed that what was once a great restaurant with personality has closed its doors.

Don't blame it on the economy!!! Many of us would have still been enjoying your restaurant if you hadn't made such drastic changes to the menu.

[tailtwister]

I can provide my opinion on what went wrong with the Modern Cafe....

Their menu!

Not so sure it was the menu...not based on how busy it always was. The fact that it was always busy says that cash flow was not an issue, however, the lease payments weren't made so the owner of the building seized the assets. I think that says it all right there.

[vanislandrev]

I would have to agree when it comes to the menu. I didn't think the food was as great as the ambiance, we often went for a few martini's (which in my opinion was their best feature). But even with the great martini's...the service wasn't the best either.