Ceci n’est pas une Cave

Spurred on by the unprecedented interest in La Cave in recent comments I will reveal what we discovered during our recent trip. First, let me simply lay out the facts as we discovered them:

1. There now a restaurant called La Cave located on Spring Garden Rd. down near the public gardens. Jen informs me that it is in one of those ‘deadly’ locations that seem to have as much turnover as an apple fritter factory. The sign outside says ‘La Cave: Fine cheesecake blah blah blah since 19-eighty somethingororother’
2. When we walked up the half-flight of stairs from street level to look in we discovered that La Cave is now apparently a large room with tables and chairs in it and a cheesecake fridge at the back. No winecellars here.
3. We decide to look elsewhere for food, and walk down Spring Garden. We walk by the old Blowers St location. It is padlocked.
4. Outside the old location there is a sign reading at the top Re-Opening Soon… The Cavern Wine Bar and Bistro. And at the bottom All the great cheesecake and ambience you loved or some such.
5. In the middle of this sign there is a clipping posted from the Coast. (The text of the clipping is online — scroll down about 2/3 of the page to ‘Best Place for a First Date’ or search for ‘cave’). The clipping, physically located between the raves for the resurrection of the old location, advertises the move to the new location.

So those are all the facts. La Cave has moved to a soulless graveyard for restaurants. The old location says ‘re-opening soon’ with a new name, but a posted review for the moved old place. Very confusing.

My hypotheses:

• The owner of the restaurant wanted a second location. He ‘moves’ the restaurant to a location on Spring Garden in the main restaurant district. He ‘closes’ the old place for renovations, then ‘re-opens’ the old place under a new name but with all the same feel. Presto. Two locations.
• The owner stupidly slew the golden goose by moving his restaurant. A new entrepreneur realizing that La Cave was the location is trying to grab the market by re-opening an indistinguishable inheritor to La Cave on the orignal premise.

In any case, Jen now believes something is fishy and is refusing to consider going to either location until things are made clear.

return to cmh blog

› NovaScotia     2005-01-23 13:03   ...0