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April 23, 2010
Reinventing bagels and buns
Former Solly’s owner offers fast, healthy eats in Kerrisdale.
BLAKE SIFTON
Noting greater public health consciousness and changing eating trends, Solly’s founder Joe Markovitch decided that the time had come to provide Vancouver diners with a healthy alternative to traditional fast food restaurants.
Teaming with cousin Lana Marks Pulver, Markovitch opened Healthee two months ago on West 41st in Kerrisdale. The clean, modern eatery features custom-made salads, wraps and smoothies, but the path to opening Markovitch’s new restaurant began, appropriately enough, with a bagel.
“The bagel gained a bad rap when the Atkins diet became popular everybody stopped eating carbs,” he said.
Working with a nutrition expert, Markovitch sought to create a new type of bagel for Healthee. “We wanted to make a bagel that was healthy and tasty,” he explained. “There’s a Montreal bagel and there’s a New York bagel – we wanted to create a uniquely West Coast-style bagel.”
The Healthee bagel should fit right into the health-conscious Vancouverite’s diet. Made with 100 percent whole grain flour, flax, sunflower and hemp seeds, the revamped bagel contains no fat, and is high in fibre and low in sodium.
The bagel complete, Markovitch and Pulver then tackled another guilty pleasure. “People love cinnamon buns but it’s all empty calories,” said Pulver. “So we made one that’s delicious but with nutritional value.”
Having reinvented the popular baked goods, Markovitch and Pulver took a fact-finding trip to Toronto and New York to see what was happening with healthy quick-service restaurants there. Surprised by the number of custom-made salad bars where customers choose their ingredients to be prepared by a salad chef, Markovitch and Pulver thought they could bring the idea to Vancouver. “We thought that if anyone would respond to a concept like this, it should be people on the West Coast who are health conscious,” they said.
While there are salad bars in Vancouver, Markovitch and Pulver question whether many are “food safe”: “The only kind of salad bars in Vancouver seem to be the self-serve kind, where all sorts of different people handle the tongs, the food sits out in the open exposed to many possible sources of contamination.”
Noting the importance of food safety, Markovitch explained, “Clean is healthy and healthy is clean.”
Excited about the healthy baked goods they created, and inspired by what they had seen in the east, Markovitch and Pulver decided it was time to launch their healthy alternative to fast food. Rather than opening Healthee downtown, the pair opted to set up shop in Kerrisdale.
“We wanted to be more a part of a neighborhood and be a part of the community,” Markovitch said. “We found Kerrisdale’s demographics appealing. It seemed like a good mix of young families, schoolchildren and elderly people.”
While he believes older people have always been conscious of what they are eating, Markovitch said he finds young people are beginning to think more about nutrition. He is already seeing a positive reaction from local students.
“Young students from the schools come here and then they come back with their parents,” he said. “They know that eating healthy is cool. McDonald’s is not cool anymore.”
Upon entering the eatery, the staff will assist you in navigating the menu and unfamiliar options. If you would like a salad prepared by a Healthee bartender, you can choose from three kinds of lettuce, more than 40 toppings and 10 house-made dressings. “You get to make exactly what you like, so you end up satisfied every time,” said Pulver.
Healthee also offers a variety of hearty soups and chilis, custom wraps and desserts. To start your day, the restaurant serves oatmeal with dried fruit, nuts and real maple syrup; smoothies with booster shots; organic, locally roasted coffee; and, of course, the soon-to-be iconic Healthee bagels and cinnamon buns.
Blake Sifton is a Vancouver-based journalist.
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