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New West café gets creative with menu

Coming Home Café is getting creative with its menu after encountering problems in the kitchen.
Coming Home Cafe
hinking outside the box: From left, Guy Dube, Michael Colomb and Gerald McCadden are getting creative in the kitchen at Coming Home Café after the restaurant was ordered to stop cooking with animal fat and oil because it lacks a proper ventilation system.

Coming Home Café is getting creative with its menu after encountering problems in the kitchen.

Because the Sixth Street café doesn’t have a proper commercial hood and ventilation and suppression systems, the mom-and-pop shop has been ordered to stop serving anything containing animal fat and oil.

“That’s kind of crazy and hard to do for a breakfast place,” said chef/manager Michael Colomb. “No bacon, no sausage. I can poach eggs and I can boil things, but I can’t do my normal breakfasts. My hash browns, I now have to do baked in the oven instead of a skillet on the top of the stove.”

While it was initially feared the order to stop serving anything containing animal fat or oil could put the café out of business, that’s no longer a concern.

“We have decided we don’t have to close because of this,” Colomb said. “We have changed the way we are doing things. The timeline is whenever we can come up with the money and give it to the company, then they can make us our vent and install it.”

Located at 753 Sixth St., Coming Home Café is known for its all-day breakfasts.

“We are doing eggs benedict every single day. I am coming up with crazy bennies to do on the weekend,” Colomb said. “I am coming up with different specials that I can do with no oil and no animal fats. It means we are going to be a lot more creative with our specials and please everybody the best we can.”

The restaurant and one of its customers have launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for a new venting fan system. The Support Coming Home! campaign, which got underway Aug. 18, has raised $525 of its $32,000 goal as of Aug. 31.

According to a Fraser Health inspection report, an environmental health officer inspected the restaurant on June 14 and noticed a lot of grease-laden vapours were being produced at the café and referred the matter to the fire department.

“We received a complaint, so we followed up and did an inspection,” said Rob Dick, an assistant deputy fire chief with New Westminster Fire and Rescue Services. “We identified they were cooking and producing grease-laden vapours. What they do not have is the appropriate ventilation system for that type of cooking.”

Without the appropriate system in place, Dick said vapours can accumulate when foods like bacon or oils are cooked and attach to walls. Grease provides fuel for a fire, if one should occur.

“With grease-laden vapours, it is the Fire Code that we are enforcing,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s about trying to ensure things are as safe as we can make them. Obviously preventing fires is what we want to do.”