This piece was originally published in the February issue of The Tomato Food and Drink magazine

Nine months after wildfire devastated Jasper, 86-ing at least a dozen well-loved cafés and restaurants in a town that loves to dine, the service industry is rising up again.

It’s not quite cork-popping time yet, but things are slowly bubbling back to life. Window seats are in high demand; margaritas, tacos and wings are luring locals out on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays (respectively); and on Valentine’s Day, leading into the Family Day long weekend, dining rooms were humming.

“It was our busiest night since the fire,” confirmed Fiddle River Restaurant’s stalwart server, the indefatigable Loni Klettl.

Considering its remoteness and population of just 5,000 souls, Jasper has always boasted a remarkably cosmopolitan food culture. But the Jasper fire has left a number of gravestones where memorable meals were once shared.

Make no mistake, between bistros and bakeries, pubs and pizzerias, fine dining to delivery, the restaurant experience you crave is still here.

But as our stomachs rumble for what will be cooking in Jasper this summer, let’s first pour one out for the kitchens that are no longer.

Pre-July 22, I loved heading up to the Aussie-owned Sunhouse Café, a place that had in a few short years imported funky coffee-culture vibes from down under to The Patricia Street shopping plaza. That centre—which was severely damaged by fire, hurricane-force winds and water, and is now under reconstruction—also housed The Peacock Cork & Fork, a wine-focused, multi-course dining experience that had been open less than six weeks before the fire made the building unsafe for occupancy.

Also in the plaza was the cheerful ground-floor spot, the Patricia Street Deli (PSD). Not only had owner and founder Glen Leitch become the standard-bearer of sandwiches in the Rockies, he and his wife Wendy had built the deli into a cornerstone of the community. The PSD is relocating to Edmonton, but dusk has set on Sunhouse for now, and the Peacock’s lights will stay off, too.

The Birch—formerly Karouzo’s Steakhouse—was another up-and-comer which was completely destroyed, as was the longtime family diner, The Bright Spot, which the enterprising Mermingas family ran out of the Connaught Drive Petro Canada building.

Aandaz, a South Asian eatery that opened in 2021, was another victim of the firestorm, as was Alba, a flavourful Italian joint in the same building.

One of Jasper’s most iconic eateries, Gus and Joanne Vlahos’ L&W Restaurant, is a loss that many old-timers will feel acutely. Anchoring the downtown for the past five decades with its impressive atrium of potted plants, Vlahos famously quipped that the acronymic name came from the elemental ingredients to run it: “Lotsa Work.” As he tallies up the losses from his eight burned buildings—including his own home—he’s not afraid of more of that in the future.

As Jasper House Bungalows is rebuilt, the amigos who started the adjacent Elk Village Restaurant are focusing on their downtown project, the piquant Mexican taqueria, Su Casa Lounge.

Down the street, The Jasper Brewpub building incurred heavy damage from not only the fire outside, but from its sprinkler-system inside. However, its owners, the Bear Hill group who somehow opened the Maligne Range Distillery only a month after the town’s re-entry in August, believe the Brewpub will be back online in the spring.

“Think of it as a hibernation,” they’ve said.

Not so for Wicked Cup, the locally-favoured café at the west end of town, part of the fire-ravaged Maligne Lodge—images of which were among the first broadcast to the disbelieving public when the wildfire first breached the townsite.

The long-standing Coco’s Café still stands, but was irreparably damaged by fire suppression efforts. And the historic Tekarra Restaurant—with its sepia memories of Marilyn Monroe—is now just that, a memory.

Finally, a fine dining establishment that will no longer bedazzle its guests is Syrahs of Jasper, which, along with the generational wine store next door, was bulldozed to contain the spreading flames. Chef Jason Munn was devastated by the loss of his pride and joy but is embracing his pivot—he’s currently helping run the kitchens at Marmot Basin.

“It doesn’t matter what you’re cooking, who you’re training or where you’re serving,” Munn said. “It comes down to how hard you’re willing to work to make guests happy.”

Bob Covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com