The Lido

If you're new to Vancouver or the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood you might know The Lido as a local drinking hole and performance venue. But prior to it opening back in 2014 the original Lido building was one of Vancouver's most mysterious places. The building at 518 East Broadway dates from 1911 and a big improvement year was 1940. The Lido with its black and green vitrolite tile is first listed in the city directory back in 1942. After doing some initial searching I found a common thread. Many people in Vancouver seem to remember the store, but many couldn't remember when it had actually been open. Here's a photo of the old storefront in 2012.

The Lido had been around for decades but I really hadn't paid much attention to it before. When I first joined Flickr back in 2005 I remember seeing some else's photos of "the store that's never open". So with a new 5 megapixel camera in hand I went over to investigate it myself. Looking through the windows you could see an almost empty store. The shelves were filled with faded yellow "no name" cans and packages that had obviously been there for many years. The middle part of the store had a few empty deli coolers and display cases. There was also a hand written price list of "Lido Specials" taped in the front window. I also noticed an up to date calendar on the wall! During the winter months when I'd been by I had also noticed that there were lights on during the evenings. So despite the store not being open for decades someone was obviously keeping an eye on the place. Here are couple of photos from  back in 2005.

I remember in 2006 the local paper the Vancouver Courier did a story on The Lido and actually named the family that owned it. I guess someone didn't like the publicity because the windows of the store were soon covered over in newspapers! So the days of looking through the windows at The Lido were suddenly over. Sadly the Courier piece has disappeared from their website. So not everything on the internet lasts forever!

It wasn't until a few years later in 2008 when the Vancouver Sun ran a story about The Lido that some of the store's mysteries were finally revealed. Apparently the building's long time owner a Mrs. Rothweiler had passed away and the store had finally been cleaned out. What they found inside was truly amazing! There were 15 cubic yards of rusted salmon and tuna cans. Plus it took 10 truckloads to empty all the junk out of the building. But under a rug someone $950.00 in vintage 50 and 100 dollar bills. Some of the cleanup crew thought they were fake. But the caretaker made the biggest discovery of a bag containing $400,000.00 in 1930's currency stashed in a bedroom closet. In the house next door a suitcase containing old German passports dating from the 1940's and 1950's was also found. Very mysterious indeed! Here's another old photo from 2005.

After doing a bit more searching I found that the Rothweilers would buy up expired cheeses and other canned and packaged goods and then sell them at discounted prices in The Lido. In the early days it looks like they must have had some kind of passport operation going as well. After Mr. Rothweiler passed away it looks like his wife kept the place basically unchanged for many decades until her eventual passing. After the store was finally cleaned out there were a few different shops that opened in the space. I think there was an art gallery and maybe a clothing boutique. Neither lasted very long and I guess the building and house next door sold sometime after 2012. In 2013 the store went through an extensive renovation and opened as The Lido bar that's there today. During the reno the new Lido lost much of it's original charm but they did keep the name and sign! Here's a Street View link of the building today.