Throwback: Restaurant Awards, Rick Hansen and High-Fashion Bedrooms

For Vancouver magazine’s 50th year, we’re taking a look back through the archives and sharing a few classic covers each month.

May 2007

There are plenty of restaurants on our 2007 Restaurant Awards list that have survived the decade and remain at the top of their game and on our list today (Kingyo, Cioppino’s, Vij’s and Phnom Penh, to name a few), but the number of excellent rooms that are no longer with us (RIP Fuel and Aurora) is a sobering reminder about the volatility of the restaurant industry; enjoy your favourites while you can. Also in this issue: a rallying cry for the then-devastated Stanley Park and a former student’s unnerving first-person account of a charming teacher who happened to also be a sexual predator.

May 1987

Rick Hansen graces the cover here, but he gets only two measly pages inside. A fashion story on swimwear shot at West Edmonton Mall’s World Water Park, however, goes on for nine, featuring pieces like a “reggae jazz halter top and capri pant in the wild and wonderful colours of a Jamaican sunset.”

May 1976

It’s hard to choose the best bedroom from this photo essay, but a crochet-draped ceiling and an 8×8 mirrored headboard lose out to the gold-velvet-enrobed backseat sleeping quarters of a 1976 Chevrolet van (additional features include a heartshaped passage to the front seat).

May 1970

McLean’s Guide was one of many titles the magazine had before settling on Vancouver in 1976, and at this point, it was just a digest of event listings, with highlights including the Canadian Judo Championship, a new play called There’s a Girl in My Soup and Reveen (“one of the foremost hypnotists of our time”) at the Orpheum.

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