Pemberton Station Pub closes June 28 after 40 years
The North Vancouver sports bar has been a working-person's gathering spot since 1986. Manager Cameron Eisner cites rising costs and changing demographics.
The Pemberton Station Pub, a fixture of North Vancouver's industrial waterfront since 1986, will close its doors for the last time on June 28 after four decades in business.
Manager Cameron Eisner made the announcement Friday afternoon, a decision he describes as "really hard" after 26 years running the establishment. The pub sits in an industrial zone at Pemberton Avenue and West First Street — a neighbourhood that once bustled with BC Rail operations and shipyard workers.
When Eisner took over in 2000, the Troll family (who'd owned the Pemberton since it opened) wanted to pivot the bar toward sports. "There were a lot of sports fans around and there weren't many good sports bars around," Eisner said. The transformation stuck: the pub became known for its 32 televisions, horseshoe-shaped bar, and loyal crowd of regulars who came to watch their teams play. A wooden chainsaw sculpture of Norm from the TV series Cheers — the bar where "everybody knows your name" — sat near the bar as a kind of mascot.
But the neighbourhood changed. The shipyards downsized, BC Rail operations moved, and the wastewater treatment plant construction that closed for years dealt a body blow to foot traffic. COVID accelerated the decline. Younger generations simply don't go out to bars the way previous ones did, Eisner said. For those who do venture out, happy hour deals are the draw — not full-price pints.
Running a bar has become a margin-destroying business. "Everything costs so much more now," Eisner explained: rent, supplies, takeout containers, liquor. "It's not like booze has gotten any cheaper."
Ian Tottenson, president of the BC Restaurant and Food Services Association, confirmed the pub's closure is part of a sobering industry-wide trend. Half of Canada's restaurants are barely breaking even, he said, with margins for pubs essentially non-existent.
The property — valued at $7 million when sold five years ago — may find new life. The District of North Vancouver council recently voted to draw up a bylaw specifically disallowing childcare on the site, citing the need to preserve industrial land for industrial uses. The move was prompted by other instances where longtime businesses closed and reopened as childcare facilities, eroding the area's working character.
For now, the Pemberton Station's last call is set. The old sports bar will join a growing list of Vancity institutions that couldn't survive the economic squeeze.