Underground eatery a shelter from the norm

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/08/2015 (3738 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

You can’t see this café from the street. Heck, if you’re standing on a street just metres away from it you probably would have no idea where it even is.

And to get to it, you almost feel you should be looking on the tunnel walls for the markings of A.S. and an arrow, like in Jules Verne’s novel Journey to the Centre of the Earth or looking for precious metals to mine.

But for Health Sciences Centre employees — as well as patients and their families and especially the ones who have just had babies — the Tunnel Café is a welcome shelter from a busy day or a short respite from the bedside.

While you don’t have to wear a hard hat to go through the tunnels, you will see a lot of them.

People who work for the hospital — driving one of the machines that pull a train of carts filled with supplies, bedding or trays of food — have to wear them.

About six metres underground and located at the side of one of the complex’s two kilometres of tunnel underground, the Tunnel Café has been a fixture since opening in 1966.

Alex Sam, a dietary aide at the hospital, has been the main guy at the steam table, coffee makers, french fry machine and cash register for the last nine years.

“When I was hired, for the first year I spent a few months in the main cafeteria in the General Hospital, but I’ve been here ever since,” Sam said.

“It’s much smaller down here. We’re the little brother of the big cafeteria.”

The hospital’s annual report in 1966 said the compact cafeteria was opened in the new laundry building to service staff from the Women’s Pavilion (now Women’s Hospital), the powerhouse and the laundry room. It is open for one shift only and has a staff of two with a part-time cashier.

The report went on to say 0vending machines were available for after-hours sales and “we only wish the seating area was larger.”

A department of dietetics newsletter in 1974 said the café had been expanded to 150 seats and there were “bright apple green walls, excellent lighting, new furniture, and beautiful bright yellow drapes make up a very popular ‘mod’ atmosphere.”

The cafeteria officially became the Tunnel Café in 1988 when all the cafeterias in the hospital complex were given names.

The closest tunnel access to the street is through the Lennox Bell Lodge on Pearl Street, behind the Women’s Hospital on Notre Dame Avenue, but most people either get to the tunnel by taking an elevator into the basement at the Women’s Hospital or elsewhere in the hospital campus.

Today the café offers daily specials five days a week as well as a breakfast special on Tuesdays and Thursdays, slices of pizza, cold sandwiches, soup and frozen yogurt.

It also offers generic coffee and java from Starbucks. It is only open from 7:15 a.m. to 1:45 p.m., and it operates with only one person.

Dr. Aaron Chiu, a regular for 15 years, said he goes because of “the convenience.”

“And Alex is fantastic, too. He’s an amazing person. I come here 12 months of the year.”

Chiu had just bought the lunch special to go. That day’s special was honey garlic meatballs, vegetable fried rice and baby carrots.

“It’s not as crowded here,” he said. “It’s easy to get served. You just have to look at a map to see where it is.

“But without this it would be a long trek, to find either (the hospital cafeteria) or the restaurants across the street.”

His opinion of the café is echoed by other hospital employees.

Leslie Badger said she goes to the café “for the macaroni and cheese — the homemade stuff. It’s delicious.”

“And it is convenient. Everything I need is right here. And the soups are good during the winter.”

Valerie Esperanzate said “the lasagna is amazing.”

“It’s close by, and you can come in with a group of people or by yourself.”

Sam estimates 75 per cent of his customers are staff and the rest either patients or family members of patients. And of those, it’s split between takeout and people who stay to eat.

Sam said his regular customers like him so much they ask about him when he’s not there.

“When I’m on vacation or sick, the customers ask about me — sometimes even when I’m on a break!”

Funny thing, even the guy who operates the café most days couldn’t find it his first day.

“I got lost, and I was late,” he said grinning.

“I was going in circles.

“But I know all the ways to get here now.”

 

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca