Chris D.
Yelp
Like bacon and maple syrup, oxymorons, and bathtub radio, the many layers of Nancy O's shouldn't work together, but they do. It's a culinary bouillabaisse of chaotic ideas. It's a pub, a bistro, a café, a hipster hangout, and a theater, a place that, if it existed a half-century ago, would've seen the likes of Allen Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, or at the very least, a Michael Myers-lookalike with a beret and cashmere scarf barking out beatnik to listeners.
That last comment indicates how old and out of touch I am. Whenever I patronize Nancy O's, I admit feeling a little...the word I've decided to use is "timeworn". With age comes a desire to lean forward in a car going uphill and tap my feet uncontrollably to elevator music. It also comes with memories of a time when this town had little to no such alternative culinary destinations. We had Chinese buffets, family eateries, and truck stops, places more fitting for the back alleys of an Orwellian dystopia. Back then, I also weighed 315 lbs. and my idea of gastronomic bliss were pizza pops and Dr. Smooth (because apparently teenagers were powered by benzene back then). I wouldn't have appreciated Nancy O's, just like the early attempts in the 90s to replicate its formula, attempts which are unfortunately no longer with us.
Today, it's evidently mandatory for all restaurants to feature a stage, even if said restaurant is smaller than a studio apartment in downtown Tokyo. Nancy O's perfected that formula, and was for a while the only place successful at it, a restaurant with the gravity to attract every manner of individual, whether it was to dine or to perform. It was a neutron star of tightly wound particles with every ounce worth the weight of Everest. I won't defend accusations of it being a hipster bar. If you dislike it for that reason, then ignore it; go to a boring sports pub and drink the last lingering shreds of your character away. Nancy O's could be called a pub if said pub was located in Belfast, but here, I would call it a restaurant and one I frequent...just like everyone else does.
In fact, why did I spend 368 words practically deifying them? It's common knowledge, like knowing that cats ignore people or that men slow down when walking with their girlfriends. Fifty years from now, the restaurant will be considered a landmark, listed alongside truss bridges and creepy steel mannequins made to resemble wood. This assumes, of course, it doesn't suffer another fire.
Yes, unfortunately, a year almost to the day after a blaze forced the temporary closure of another local restaurant, Nancy O's (along with several other businesses) were struck by fire. Thankfully, their re-opening took only a week. Like the city's proud century-old ironworks, Nancy O's refused to fall. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the city's collective vigilance to prevent the loss of another landmark as the reason for Nancy O's survival. For a while, it held the top spot on Trip Advisor, still holds the pinnacle on Yelp. Its Facebook page has more likes than the city's own official page. From chicken and brie sandwiches and chili cheese fries in the afternoon to maple soy steelhead salmon and risotto balls in the evening, Nancy O's is more adaptable than Daniel Day-Lewis.
We all know Nancy O's is the culinary and cultural epicenter of Prince George, and if I ever committed to a pub-crawl, I would start and finish with that semi-hidden restaurant on 3rd avenue. I also admit it being my zombie apocalypse rendezvous point...because people need to be prepared.
