Warning: This post will make you hungry.
Procuring healthy foods in Kitsilano is not a difficult task. Our neighbourhood is overflowing with wonderful restaurants, cafes, and grocers. The much-anticipated Tractor Everyday Healthy Foods restaurant is now open on the corner of Cypress Street and West 4th Avenue, bringing yet another fresh-fare focused option to the westside.
Dunbar residents and Tractor proprietors Steve and Meghan Clarke have done us and our bodies a favour; delicious salads, sandwiches, soups, and stews are on offer at their bright and modern cafeteria-style little restaurant. Powerhouse vegetables, fruits, grains, and nuts are the core ingredients in much of their recipes.
Salad combinations include kale and Granny Smith apples with radicchio and a honey lime dressing. Roasted red and yellow beets with green beans, pistachios, feta, and a walnut vinaigrette. Organic quinoa, portobello mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes and golden raisins with goat cheese and fragrant herbs.
Want more protein? No problem. Add a lightly seared albacore tuna, curried tiger prawns, local organic chicken breast or beef short rib dish to your order. Are you hungry yet? Vegans, gluten-free, and dairy-free folks are looked after as well.
The set-up at Tractor is straightforward. Browse the daily menu items behind the glass counter – pick a salad or two, half or a whole sandwich (get one early as they sell out quickly), add a soup or stew, and a side dish if you think that will finally quell those hunger grumbles. Match it up with a drink and perhaps some double chocolate and pistachio gluten-free cookies for dessert. Voilà, your meal is served, well, sort of. You carry it to your seat.
Overall, the concept is simple. The food, delightfully, is not. Although you could probably attempt to prepare some of Tractor’s everyday menu creations at home, why bother? Chef Ryan Mah (formerly of Chinois, Goldfish, Joe Fortes, Wild Rice) and his skilled young team have done the work for you, and at shockingly reasonable prices.
Stop by for lunch or on your way home from work and ask for your selections to go. Stay in and enjoy a craft beer or a crisp glass of BC white wine with your chosen meal combination. Kids are more than welcomed and they even have their own (also healthy) menu items to choose from. Big strollers fit just fine too.
As the summer approaches, Tractor will be opening an outdoor patio. Look out, Whole Foods.
Tractor Everyday Healthy Foods, 1903 West 4th Avenue, 604-222-2557, Tractorfoods.com
Read the rest of our Tractor coverage here.
Service: Tractor is a cafeteria-style, à la carte type restaurant, though service staff are ready and eager to help when needed.
Price: Salads, $3.25 to $6.50; sandwiches, $5 to $9; soups and stews $6 to $8; beer and wine $6 to $8.
Hours: Open Sunday to Wednesday 11am till 9pm; Thursday to Saturday, 11am till 10pm.
Last modified: May 16, 2017
The interior is great, the concept is great. The food is alright. Not sure how you get “shockingly reasonable prices” though. I didn’t find this to be true at all.