A Vancouver restaurant is making a big change, flipping from serving Filipino street food to New England chowder, later this month.
While the two may not sound related, both concepts are from the same duo: Matt Brennan and Corvette Romero. The pair launched Shameless Buns, based on the Filipino food truck of the same name that they own, three years ago; on Sept. 21 the brick-and-mortar restaurant space will become Jack's Chowder.
"We have made the difficult decision to transition the Shameless Buns restaurant into our new concept — Jack’s Chowder," reads a post on Shameless Buns' Instagram.
The short-lived Shameless Buns opened up at 5772 Fraser St. in July 2021. Since it opened, the business has struggled, the owners reveal.
"Unfortunately, things did not go as planned. Although our food truck business continued to soar, our little restaurant did not," reads the post. "We struggled. We struggled a lot."
Instead of giving up, the pair decided to try something new and came up with Jack's Chowder.
The duo has been trialling out a few "ghost-kitchen"-style concepts out of their Fraser Street kitchen since opening Shameless Buns.
"We began developing Jack’s a few months ago with the dream of bringing really great New England Clam chowder to Vancity," reads the post.
The chowder shop started as a pop-up in September, to test the waters, and things went well. Therefore, Jack's Chowder is becoming a permanent fixture and running Friday to Sunday for the foreseeable future, open from 11:30 am to 8 p.m. In the future, the restaurant's hours may expand.
The new concept offers clam chowder, of course, along with fish sandwiches (in a beer batter), popcorn shrimp, and salt and vinegar fries.
"Jack's Chowder is a love letter to those seaside afternoons; sun glistening, with the lingering aroma of ocean funk…pier side and a good bowl of clam chowder," reads the new restaurant's website.
Brennan has also had a busy year; he appeared this spring on an episode of the Food Network show Guy's Grocery Games.
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