RESTAURANT SPOTLIGHT

View fullsize

Colbin Wong is the owner/operator of Cora on Robson.

CORA
So Many Choices - All Delicious!

The story of Cora restaurants begin in 1987, when Cora Mussely Tsouflidou, a single mother with three teenagers to support, bought a small snack bar in Montreal’s Saint-Laurent district. After just a few months of operation, Cora changed the diner's mission, making breakfasts her specialty. Experimenting with fruit, cheese, cereal, omelets, crepes, and French toast, culinary magician Cora started a whole new breakfast concept in Quebec.

The story of Cora on Robson began in 2010 when Jack and Siu Ling Wong and their son Colbin attended a franchise showcase and, of all the business opportunities on offer, found Cora the most attractive. There were already two locations in Metro Vancouver (Coquitlam and White Rock) and one in Kelowna, so the restaurant had some local recognition. Plus Colbin, who worked in the computer software field, had been introduced to Cora in Toronto and was already sold on the quality and breadth of the breakfast menu.  

The Wongs opened their first Cora in Steveston in 2012 and after years of searching for an appropriate downtown site discovered the former location of the Marbello and Razzmatazz restaurants at 1368 Robson. After the latter restaurant closed the address had been the site of a couple of short-lived travel agencies and had sat vacant for two years. And so Cora arrived in the West End in the spring of 2016. 

The menu at Cora is inspired by family traditions, customer requests, and sometimes seemingly wild suggestions from Cora’s children. She designed her breakfasts to coincide with the new trends toward healthy eating. One by one, she improved the traditional breakfast dishes and then conjured up a hundred others.

Every new creation merited its own colourful illustration, which was then posted on the wall of the little Côte-Vertu diner. The menu imagery was used in the now-famous signage that still decorates each Cora restaurant.

Now 74 and having passed the management of the Cora Group to her youngest son Nicholas Tsouflidis, Cora still stays up to date on industry matters and regularly visits restaurants to ensure that her quality standards are being respected by remaining in contact with her guests, her main source of inspiration and motivation. She remains involved in the creation of new dishes by testing and evaluating new recipes.

Every dish on the Cora menu has a story! To satisfy the craving of a friend who had asked her for a surprise, Cora prepared a magnificent fruit cup topped with her own special custard, with a bagel and cream cheese on the side. Seeing the platter as it passed, one client exclaimed "It's magic! Tell Cora that we love her handiwork!”

Cora’s daughter, Gigi provided the inspiration for a feast titled “1990s Harvest”. She had the idea of slicing a large brioche in half, dipping each half in the French toast batter, and toasting them on the griddle. She then topped one half with an egg and a few slices of bacon, and the other with a mountain of fresh fruit.

Cora found the inspiration for the “Buckwheat Blessing” after a visit to a US restaurant where she saw an amazing plate of three large sausages rolled in pancakes and served with a variety of fruit sauces. She transformed the dish into a more refined version: three sausages and Cheddar cheese, tucked inside buckwheat crêpes and topped with a mountain of fresh fruit.

The Cora group today includes 130 restaurants across Canada, with more to come. Collectively, the Cora restaurant chain serves 12,000 liters of coffee, 60,000 crêpes, and 317,000 eggs every week on average. It is the recognized leader in the Canadian breakfast industry, serving more than 10 million guests each year.

Meanwhile, here on Robson Street Colbin Wong is now the owner/president and hands-on manager, an enthusiastic and innovative young man who balances his passion for his business with his love of field hockey which, after years on the field, he now serves as president of the Vancouver Men’s Field Hockey League. Colbin oversees a staff of up to 25 during high-volume periods and is proud of the fact that most of the staff, including himself, are trained to take on just about every aspect of the food preparation and service. 

“We’re a very versatile team” he says, “and when staff members decide to move on in the industry they find that having worked at Cora is a great recommendation.”

You can find more stories about Cora, its early days, and the menu here.