Kurdish-owned Dutch Wooden Shoe serves Dutch recipes in Canada

"Our family and John's family became very close and he promised me that he would give me the restaurant."

Wladimir van Wilgenburg 2021/12/04 16:49

Dutch Wooden Shoe Caffee owned by Kurds in Vancouver, Canada. (Photo: Dutch Wooden Shoe Caffee).

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Kurds from the Kurdistan Region established a Dutch-Canadian restaurant called ‘Dutch Wooden Shoes Coffee’ in the Canadian city of Vancouver that mainly serves the Dutch-Canadian community in Canada.

“About 60% of our customers are Dutch. There’s not a big Kurdish population in Vancouver; they mostly live in the cities outside of Vancouver,” the owner, Ali, who is originally from the Kurdistan Region, told Kurdistan 24.

According to a census carried out in Canada in 2006, there were more than 1 million Canadians of full or partial Dutch descent.

“We bought this restaurant in 2006,” Ali said. “I worked for the founder John Dys for 12 years. Our family and John's family became very close and he promised me that he would give me the restaurant.”

“There is a franchise in Vancouver BC called DeDutch and it was started from the original restaurant The Dutch Wooden Shoe Café,” he added. “Now John’s children and family own and run the franchise and we own the original that is not attached to the other restaurants.”

He said they initially wanted to change the name. “But John Dys asked us to keep the names and recipes the same until he passed away in April of 2020. We are still close with his family and wife and they come in once in a while to see how it’s doing.”

Memorial for John Dys, founder of Dutch Wooden Shoes Coffee in Vancouver, Canada. (Photo: Dutch Wooden Shoe Caffee)

“We did change the company name to Bejil Restaurant,” he said. “Bejil is the town in Kurdistan that I grew up in, very close to the town Akre.”

Ali left Kurdistan in 1991 with his younger brother and cousins. They stayed in a refugee camp in Turkey for almost two years.

In 1993, Ali, his cousins, and brother were brought to Toronto. However, later they moved to Vancouver where the weather is a little bit warmer.

Eventually, Ali found a job with the Dutch Wooden Shoe Cafe in the kitchen in 1995.

“John Dys and I became close friends and co-workers,” Ali said.

As a result, Ali learned a lot about the restaurant industry.

“From there on John took me in as a family and I had a very close relationship with both of their families that they built in Canada for themselves,” he said.

Ali noted that the demographic of Vancouver is so “diverse and has all kinds of people from all over the world.”

“The restaurant is very family friendly and we love it when we have lots of kids come in to eat as well,” he said. “The restaurant is famous for our Dutch pannekoek’s (pancakes) and our fluffy waffles.”