Track & Food Podcast

In this episode, I'm joined by my good friends James Iranzad (Gooseneck Hospitality) and Tristan Young, General Manager of The Keefer Bar. Together, we talk through Tristan's whirlwind summer running "The Best Bar in Canada", as recently crowned by North America's 50 Best Bars. From there, we discuss new restaurants on the horizon; the finalists for enRoute's Air Canada's Best New Restaurants list; and this year's BC Restaurant and Foodservices Association inductees. The episode closes with a...

What exactly is a "neighbourhood restaurant", and is it something that can be manufactured through PR and virality? To understand these questions in greater detail - including how they relate to Vancouver’s current dining scene - I sit down with podcast regulars James Langford-Smith (June, Pamplemousse Jus) and James Iranzad (Gooseneck Hospitality) to get their individual insights, expectations, and dining experiences of the "neighbourhood restaurant". Will the financials of operations make t...

I recently sat down with Max Curzon-Price and Andrew Kong to hear how things are shaping up for their upcoming Chinatown project, Bar Supernova (they’re targeting an August opening — follow them on Instagram for updates), situated next door to the legendary Keefer Bar. As construction ramps up, the two dished on how they’re feeling, where the budget has gone so far, and what to expect from their summer rooftop patio pop-up series – as well as their broader thoughts on the state of the F&B...

Recently, I sat down with my good friend James Iranzad (Gooseneck Hospitality) for a long-overdue catch-up, beginning with a piece that caught both our attention: Substance Abuse, a column by Ed Elson in the Simply Put newsletter. Elson's provocative thesis suggests that the dramatic decline in alcohol sales isn't primarily about health consciousness, GLP-1 drugs, or cannabis legalization — it's about screen addiction. Together, we broke down his argument, and discussed what it means for the ...

This week, I'm joined by Liz Carlisle and Aubrey Streit Krug, co-editors of Living Roots: The Promise of Perennial Foods (Island Press, March 3, 2026), a new collection from The Land Institute and UC Santa Barbara that asks a deceptively simple question: what would agriculture look like if we stopped starting over every year? Perennial crops (plants that come back season after season without replanting) aren't just an agronomic curiosity. They're a lens for examining everything that's broken ...