One byline, all of Richmond
About Richmond Local
Written by someone who actually lives here.
A business directory for Richmond, written and checked by one person who lives in it. Here is who that is, what is on here, and how the whole thing works.
What makes this one different
Three things I do not bend on
I would rather set out the rules than leave you to work them out from the entries.
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Every entry written by hand
I write the entries one at a time, and nothing goes up that I have not read. That is why the index fills in batches instead of arriving complete on the first day.
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Independents only, chains left out
A national brand does not need my help being found. This is for the places with one location, or two, where the person who owns it is in the building most days.
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Owners can correct me
If the business is yours and something on its page is wrong, say so and I will change it. I take the owner's word over my own notes, every time.
Why this exists
I started this because I got tired of answering the same questions one at a time. Where should I take my parents for dim sum. Which of the four bubble tea places on that block in Brighouse is worth it. Friends asked, coworkers asked, and anyone new to the city asked twice.
The directories that already covered Richmond were mostly scraped, and you can tell. Half the entries are for places that shut two years ago, and the descriptions could fit any city in the country. Somebody bought a feed, pointed it at a template, and never stood in the parking lot.
I would rather say this plainly than bury it. The whole site is written under a single editorial byline, mine, so every guide and listing note on here comes off one desk with one set of standards behind it.
Who is writing this
I was born at Richmond Hospital and grew up in Broadmoor, back when you could cut across a field to reach a friend's house and find it still there next summer. My parents ran a produce stall at the Richmond Public Market through the nineties and into the 2000s. That stall is where I learned the city. Not from a map. From which suppliers turned up when they said they would, which streets flood in November, and who was related to whom.
I miss that market. What I do not miss is the apologizing: this city spent years embarrassed about its strip malls, spending money to look like a downtown instead. Those plazas are the best thing it has, and almost nothing worth eating sits behind the nice frontage.
I studied at Kwantlen, then spent eight years in operations for a food distributor, moving product between Richmond warehouses and Lower Mainland restaurants. You learn a lot about a kitchen from the loading dock side.
I live in Steveston now, four blocks off Moncton Street, close enough to hear the gulls working the dock before I am properly awake. Most mornings I ride the West Dyke Trail with my dog, Biscuit, who decides how far we go. I am a bad cook and a very good eater, and I am honest about both.
What is actually on here
The listings are real businesses, checked, sorted by category and neighbourhood. Nobody drives from Steveston to Ironwood on a Tuesday for a haircut, so where a place sits matters nearly as much as what it is.
Around the listings there are guides to the things people genuinely search for: dim sum, bubble tea, where to park for the night market and when the lineup turns ugly, which dog parks have shade, and what to do when it rains for nine days straight. I rank things and say why, because a guide that likes everything is no use to anyone.
Before an entry goes live
Checked by hand, written in Richmond
Checked means something specific here, and it is worth being plain about the limits. Every entry was researched against the business's own website or its Google listing before it went up, and anything that could not be confirmed was left blank rather than guessed at. That is why you will see listings with no phone number and no hours: an empty field is honest, an invented one is not.
What it does not mean is that I have stood outside every door. Hours change, businesses close, and a directory that claims otherwise is lying to you. If something here is wrong, the correction form is the fastest way to fix it and I read everything that arrives.
Written in Richmond is the other half, and it is the half that takes longer. The sentences have to come from someone who knows which plaza entrance is off the side street, where the parking turns bad after four, and which stretch of No. 3 Road is faster on foot. A description that would sit just as happily on a page about Burnaby is not finished, so it comes back to me instead of going up.
None of that makes the site infallible. Hours move, kitchens close, and a place I checked in March can be gone by June. It does mean that when something on here is wrong, one person got it wrong and one person can fix it.
How listings work
Free to be listed, easy to correct
Being on here costs nothing, and I would much rather be corrected than be wrong.
No fee, no paid placement
There is no package to buy and nothing to subscribe to. You send the details, I check them, and the page goes up.
Claim your own page
If the business is yours, claim the page and correct it: the hours, the phone number, the fact that you moved across the plaza in March.
Corrections come first
You tell me an entry is wrong and I fix it. There is a contact form for exactly that, and those go to the front of the queue.
The honest bit
Both Richmonds
Richmond gets written about two ways: a food destination you drive into for one meal, or the suburb beside the airport. It is neither, and both versions miss most of it.
This is a delta town. At one end there is a working waterfront where boats actually unload, not a heritage display of them. At the other, around No. 3 Road and Alexandra, is one of the densest and most interesting commercial districts in the country. Visitors pick one half and decide it is the real Richmond.
I can tell you which Alexandra Road kitchen turns its oil over, and which Steveston fish and chip window is worth the summer lineup. You never have to pick a side, and that is the whole argument of this site.
Run a business here?
Add it to the directory
Listings are free, and I check every one by hand before it goes live. Send me the details and tell me what makes the place worth the drive.