On October 13, 1947, Vancouver’s dining public was treated to a restaurant experience unlike any it had seen before.
“Looking for a change of scenery?” asked The Province. “[Sky Diner], its tail assembly jutting out over the sidewalk at 776 Granville, is the first restaurant of its kind in the world. A gently sloped ramp leads from the sidewalk to the entrance and its interior is almost exactly like that of a passenger aircraft.”
Opening in the heart of what was then called Theatre Row, the Sky Diner (referred to initially as both the Airliner and Mainliner) aimed to capitalize on the exotic new trend of air travel. Its servers dressed like flight attendants, the seats were chrome and leather, and the room was modelled to look like the interior of a Douglas DC-3 aircraft. It even featured a “droning” sound meant to emulate a jet engine, and moving scenery outside the windows, courtesy of a painted backdrop on spools.
“Eighteen minutes of cross-Canada panorama glides past portholes in a new airliner style restaurant making its maiden flight tonight,” The Province wrote. “Adjustable seats have airfoam cushions and the walls and ceiling are lined with dur-aluminum and soundproofing throughout. Luggage racks opposite each booth conceal indirect fluorescent lighting fixtures.”
Sky Lounge. Image courtesy of the Royal BC Museum Archives.
The restaurant was the brainchild of a local consortium calling itself Frannel’s—three men with no restaurant experience, led by Vancouver used car salesman Frank Blondheim. There is nothing in the historical record indicating how the trio knew one another (all three hailed from different cities), or what inspired them to open a restaurant.
At the time, it must have seemed like a solid bet. Few amongst the emerging middle class had ever flown, let alone seen the inside of an airplane. The DC-3 (upon which the room design was based) had only been in operation since 1935, and international flights with pressurized cabins were virtually brand new. Consequently, Frannel’s pulled out all the stops for the opening. Every amenity was chronicled in the pages of local papers, and a message on the menu promised diners “Food Fit for a King.”
“Our Chef,” it read, “affectionately known as ‘The Skipper,’ has had the honor of preparing meals for two English kings, George V and Edward VIII, hence our Maxim.”
The menu itself was extensive, featuring soup, grilled steaks, and sandwiches, as well as a soda fountain with parfaits, frappés, and sundaes. It also contained something called the Sky Diner Special, which seems designed to have given even George V gastric upset: a combination of grapefruit, orange, and celery curls, alongside prunes stuffed with mayonnaise and cottage cheese.
Granville Street was a busy area, and the Sky Diner was on a popular corner—dozens of street photos, taken by local legend Foncie Pulice, feature its sign prominently in the background. Nonetheless, after its opening, the Sky Diner struggled to make a name for itself. Frannel’s tried various strategies, including a first class section for VIP customers, and an extra space known as the Sky Room, which was designed to look like an airport lounge (evidently reflecting a time when waiting to board at the airport wasn’t an especially fraught experience).
It wasn’t enough. By the end of 1948, the business was already in trouble. In May 1949, they put the Sky Diner up for sale, all equipment included. It had been a spectacular failure—from opening to bankruptcy in less than two years—and in the wake of the sale, Frannel’s disappeared, leaving the restaurant game forever.
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But the Sky Diner was far from grounded. In the spring of 1959, it was purchased by a family whose restaurant roots went back to the turn of the century. Having started back in 1911 with White Lunch (a Hastings Street diner reportedly as racist as its name implied), the Sorensen family built up a local restaurant empire in the ensuing years. By the 1950s, they had establishments all over town, and company president Clarence “Clancy” Sorensen, a Harvard grad billed as “more businessman than cook” by The Province, likely knew a good deal when he saw one. Within months of purchasing the restaurant, it had reopened as Clancy’s Sky Diner and did brisk trade on Granville for the next six years.
“I do remember going there to eat,” recalls Lori Sorensen, Clarence’s granddaughter. “Our parents didn’t really take us to the cafeterias, but when they took us to Clancy’s Sky Diner, it was for a special occasion. It felt just like you were sitting in an airliner.”
Clancy’s Sky Diner. Image courtesy of City of Vancouver Archives.
The Sorensens made few visible changes to the existing restaurant, with the exception of installing twin dishwashers, and, as The Province noted in August 1949, “a special automatic device for washing, sterilizing, and drying silverware.” They did make modifications to the menu, expanding the breakfast and sandwich options, and adding an item called the Eastern Oyster Milk Stew. There are indications that the revamped diner wasn’t the easiest place to work. From the time the Sorensens took over, barely a week went by without Help Wanted ads appearing in the back of local papers. The original manager, Sadie Lucas, was replaced by Dorothy McKie in the late 1950s (both women had worked their way up through the White Lunch restaurants), and it was McKie who ran the restaurant for the next five years.
“I loved watching the moving pictures behind the ‘cabin windows’ in the dining room,” recalled Dorothy’s son Richard McKie. “On Saturdays my stepdad would take me by the restaurant to say hi to Mum, and the cooks would make me up a special plate of silver dollar pancakes.”
In 1959, Clarence Sorensen ostensibly retired, stepping back from day-to-day operations and making his son (Lori’s father) Keith general manager. But Granville was declining in popularity as a pedestrian route, and consequently the Sorensen establishments in the area began to suffer. One of their three restaurants on Granville closed, and another was rebranded as Clancy’s Coffee Shop. But the family’s struggles continued, and in the mid-1960s, they attempted another rebrand; the Coffee Shop and Sky Diner became the Downtown and Uptown Restaurants, respectively. Unfortunately, the effort couldn’t save them. In 1965, the once iconic Sky Diner was sold. After a brief period under new ownership (as The Uptowner), it became the site of a finishing school, abandoning its aeronautical culinary past.
The cover of a menu from a later iteration of the diner, 1952. Image courtesy of Museum of Vancouver.
“I once heard a quote from my grandfather,” Lori notes, “and he thought that it was because people had televisions, and started staying home to watch TV in the evening instead of going out, that they lost a lot of foot traffic—people going out to the theatre or the movies, who might have walked in.”
After selling the diner, the Sorensen restaurant empire continued for a few more years, until the last remaining White Lunch closed its doors in 1973.
Today, the site (and even the address) of the Sky Diner is long gone, replaced by a low-slung set of retail shops. But for a brief period, the Sky Diner, and the people who ran it, were flying high, treating curious Vancouverites to a taste of the friendly skies.
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