Joey started life as Joey Tomato’s but since most of the dishes didn’t really have tomatoes in them, the name was changed to Joey Restaurants. Today, everyone just call it Joey. Joey restaurants are part of the Fuller family of restaurants. In addition to Joey, the Fuller family also owns Earl’s, Townhall, Satlik Steakhouse, 50% of Cactus Club Cafe and who knows how many other restaurant operations.
Joey has 16 locations in Canada, with three of them being in Vancouver (they also have three locations in Washington State). We had lunch at the Joey located inside the Bentall One tower in downtown Vancouver. The restaurant is extremely big and I can only imagine what the rent must be like since the Bentall buildings are very prestigious. Not that Joey would have any problems paying the rent. The place was completely packed at lunch time as the suits from the Bentall towers came down to eat.
It’s clear the Fullers spared no expense creating Joey at Bentall One. The room is very expansive with 20 foot high ceilings and a huge bar with rows of plasma screens housed in wooden gold frames. Joey follows the tried and tested Fuller formula for successful restaurants – staff it with lots of hot young girls! It’s not politically correct but you can’t argue with the effectiveness.
Because we showed up right at the lunch time rush, we had to wait a bit for a table. This really wasn’t that bad because a hostess came and offer us a of glass wine and an appetizer to munch on while we were waiting. I don’t know if Joey does this for everyone or just for bloggers who will blog about them. Anyway, on to the lunch!
Wild & Creamy Mushroom Soup
I started with the wild and creamy mushroom soup with hint of sherry. It came with a huge wedge of garlic bread. If you’re on a low carb diet, I recommend skipping the bread and just having the soup, which was really good.
Lobster Ravioli
Lobster ravioli stuffed with Atlantic lobster, crab, shrimp and ricotta cheese in a lemon dill cream sauce. This was a pretty good dish but I had trouble tasting the lobster. I might have placed too high an expectation on it because I was using the butternut squash ravioli from Cactus Club as a reference. Still, it was very enjoyable.
My lunch at Joey came to $34 with tax and tip, which is pretty expensive for a lunch but considering the powerhouse downtown location and wall to wall eye candy, you can’t really complain.
