About Richmond Local

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 apologising: 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. 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.