BC Business
This Main Street bar is the city's worst-kept secret with a tale as old as time.
When you give your bar a name like “The Narrow” you know what kind of a place you want it to be. Which is why, despite its reputation for chaos and insanity, founder David Duprey has been able to maintain an air of mystery around the Main Street bar for as long as it has existed—if the lack of any signs (other than a shabby red light) didn’t scream that already.
This gem has been around for some 15 years, making it an obvious hole-in-the-wall for locals. First, you pry open a metal door, go down a dark, narrow flight of stairs with spray-painted walls that make you question your sanity and personal safety. Then you arrive at a second door that transports you to a marvelous, old-school, speakeasy-like environment with chandeliers, red walls and vintage art. All-day happy hour (in Vancouver, nonetheless!) and great cocktails are just a few of the bullet points to draw you in, although there’s certainly more to the story.
“I really wanted The Narrow to be like an amusement ride,” says Duprey, who signed the lease for the space back in 2006. “There were a lot of lock-ins until nine o’clock in the morning and a lot of absolute insanity that happened in that place. A lot of dancing on the bar, I lit the bar on fire a couple of times, the burn marks are still there. It was a reputation that was well-earned, for sure.”
The Narrow Group
At the time, Duprey found Vancouver bars to be boring, white-wall drinking establishments (barring the super high-end stuff, which were also stoic in their own ways). After spending 10 years in San Francisco, he wanted to recreate that kind of nightlife in his hometown.
But despite signing the lease in 2006, he wasn’t able to officially open The Narrow until 2008. Thanks to hard-headed liquor laws, Duprey ran it as an illegal boozecan for months until he got the green light to continue business as usual. “Liquor control is horrible in this town—they’re the worst creatures ever,” Duprey contends. “Especially 15 years ago, when this was still a no-fun city. They did not like what I was doing down there, for sure.”
The place didn’t actually make any money until the 2010 Olympics, when the city changed the rules to save face and allowed bars and restaurants to stay open until 2 a.m. And despite its best-selling cocktails—like the bourbon sour, chocolate old-fashioned and lavender-infused gin fizz—The Narrow still brings in a relatively modest $5,000 a month, according to Duprey.
But it’s the serial entrepreneur’s first bar, and that means more to him than hitting the yearly fiscal. “I own six bars in Vancouver, but there’s no recreating The Narrow,” he maintains. “That’s a one-time special thing that’s never gonna happen again.”