According to rumour, the rustic spanish-styled restaurant, Mescaleros, was at one time a girls' finishing school run by a matron named Maxine (who apparently didn't like men much). It is said that when the school wasn't doing so well financially, a tower was built on the side that served as a small hotel, where the girls from the school, also serviced guests. Apparently there is a tunnel from the basement of Mescaleros, out to the bathhouse on English Bay Beach. The tunnel was used during prohibition to smuggle alcohol into the city. Newspaper clippings about these stories were apparently found in the basement. A waitress at Mescaleros told me all this during a lovely summer meal there in 1997.

Mescaleros — 1215 Bidwell Street, at Davie, Vancouver. Fall, 1999
PHOTO: Andy Sorfleet