Culture City Informer Why Are Rooftop Bars So Rare in Vancouver?

All we want is to drink a lukewarm beer with our heads in the clouds—is that so much to ask?!

DID YOU KNOW?

A Roof By Any Other Name

Some Vancouver bars that claim to be “rooftop” are actually a terrace (we’re looking at you, Reflections) or have a full-on ceiling (are you afraid of the sun, Black and Blue?).

while getting a glorious thirddegree sunburn?

Vancouverites come from all walks of life, but at the end of a grey, grey spring, we are all one thing: very soggy. We crave the sun, and will bask in its middling rays wherever they may land—whether that’s curbside on a six-lane thoroughfare or in the muddy thicket of a dog park. But this city is missing what sun-seekers crave most: rooftop patios.

by Stacey McLachlan

Millennia ago, our ancestors worked ceaselessly under the beating sun, dreaming of the day they would one day invent the roof. How could they ever have predicted that the height of modern luxury would be drinking outdoors?

And yet what activity is more desirable, more aspirational, more centre-of-the-seasonalvision-board for a Vancouverite than sipping a watery margarita

While I’m sure servers here are happy that they don’t have to sweat their way up 15 flights of stairs every time I decide I want hot sauce with my happy-hour tater tots (hello, yes, I am 35), it seems borderline cruel that we must do our outdoor drinking and nacho-bill splitting with our feet firmly on the ground. Ugh! Do you know what happens on the ground!? All the worst stuff! It’s disgusting down here! But to enjoy a beverage in the sky? To be five storeys closer to the sun’s glorious rays? There is no greater summer treat.

The rooftop patio is a staple of the world’s most cosmopolitan cities: London! Bangkok! Calgary! And yet Vancouver’s rooftop watering holes can be counted on one hand and are often located a pitiful two storeys up. A tall, mean man could probably reach up and tie someone’s shoelaces together on the Darby’s patio if he had just finished