While being a part of the Victoria food scene for almost a year, End Dive has brought a local connection to every aspect of the downtown restaurant’s experience.
From the bottles lining the bar shelves, to the art hanging on the walls and the food landing in front of patrons sitting at handcrafted tables, what runs through all of them is a link to someone or something in Greater Victoria.
Almost all of the seafood and vegetable-forward menu comes from nearby producers, while the bar is stocked with locally made spirits and all but two of their wines are from B.C.
After working in restaurants all his life and heading the kitchen at Be Love for years, chef Mat Clarke approached owner Joe Cunliffe with the idea of opening a new spot.
Clarke likes to keep the ever-changing menu a little unpredictable with their locally sourced products. The chef is backed up by part owner Kara Martyn making the best pasta he’s ever eaten and head bartender Todd Newton making cocktails that rival the city’s best.
Clarke grew up in the punk music scene and plays in a band with Newton. While securing space that could’ve been a venue for live music didn’t work out, End Dive is always playing full albums of bands the owners love and curating the tunes to fit the patrons coming through the door.
Clarke said End Dive was designed around the community itself, which was bolstered by their connections to Victoria’s arts scene and the friendships they’ve made with restaurant industry workers over the years, like their front-of-house manager who started a farm during the pandemic and now supplies them produce.
“We just wanted to make a place where you feel comfortable and we had all these relationships with everybody and support each other,” Clarke said.
The Government Street restaurant’s art was done by a cook who worked with them at Be Love, which makes it an easy referral when diners ask about it as the owners just have to point them to their friend’s social media. During the restaurant’s build, they gave the keys to their artist for the weekend and returned to the mural of three frogs that now coats the back wall.
“I’ve grown to love it and people comment on it constantly so I feel like it’s working and makes the room exactly what we wanted – which is kind of strange yet fun,” Clarke said. “For the most part, we just got a lot of people we trust and knew they were going to do really cool things.”
The physical elements of the restaurant have regional roots as well. The mahogany bar that was sitting in a friend’s shop, while the rest of the wood came from the Island, with handcrafted tables and chairs put together by local welders and woodworkers.
The owners also refurbished an old stair stringer – still speckled with indentations from where nails were pulled from it –from the building that now makes up the bench customers sit at.
While the local aspects happened organically, it quickly became the model for End Dive thanks to all the talented builders and growers that make up the friends, or friends of a friend that had a hand in just about everything at the restaurant.
“If you’re able to get it locally it just makes sense,” Clarke said.
“I think for us it comes from a place of that’s how you get what you want,” Cunliffe said, noting their scratch-made chairs were partially the result of a global search that couldn’t find seating that would fit the space’s atmosphere.
“Sitting here now, I love this space, it’s exactly how I wanted it to feel. I think there’s interest everywhere you look and the longer you’re in here you’ll notice different details,” Cunliffe said. “I think a restaurant should be very personal to who the owners are.”
“This is who we are and this is what we feel we can bring to the Victoria food scene.”
Clarke and Cunliffe’s goal was a casual space that gave people a really good product. They said the response has been incredibly positive through ten months of business.
“It’s something that we feel Victoria is excited to have,” Cunliffe said.
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