Peppers Taqueria owner realizes dream with bar, but may have opened it ‘two years too early’
A new watering hole has snuck onto the Vancouver scene, and it shares a space with a downtown favorite.
The venture is a new one for Jeff Talamantes, who opened Peppers Taqueria 1994, and although it opened its doors in mid-October, the bar has been five years in the making.
Talamantes owns the building at Eighth and Main streets, and when the now-defunct Bill’s Shoe Repair went under in early 2002, he took control of the space.
"I always knew what I wanted to do with it," he said. "Time and money were the only problem."
It took a couple of years to clear out, and with the help of friends, start construction. The team gutted the space and rebuilt it by hand. They went through a false ceiling to discover two "skylights" and through several layers of plaster to reveal the original brick walls.
Even the bar top was handmade from a tree he felled on a friends’ farm in Woodland.
It took about $100,000 of his personal money, but the result is an airy space with a fun, downtown atmosphere and without any trace of stuffiness or pretension.
"It’s casual with a posh feel," Talamantes said. "But not uppity-up."
As of now, the bar remains nameless, but he expects to change the name of the whole business to Peppers Mexican Bar and Grill.
Business has been slow to start, with 30 to 40 people coming in each night.
Talamantes has done no advertising – the bar doesn’t even have a sign.
"It’s so new, we don’t have one yet," he said. "I’m thinking about just getting one of those neon BAR signs. That should work."
Talamantes said he’s personally broke now, but wanted to get the space finished before construction costs escalate even more.
Refinishing the bar was more drastically expensive than Talamantes anticipated. All of the fixtures and furniture in it are new, which costs about 30 percent more than opting for used products.
"I thought it was just better to start fresh," he said.
He also said wanted to work out any kinks and feel out his target demographic before making an advertising splash. So far, it looks like the majority of his clientele fit into the "business people" category.
So when it comes time to advertise, he’ll aim at the local market, find the professionals and where they work, and put in plenty of face time, he said.
Downtown is on the verge
"I think maybe I built the bar two years too early," Talamantes said. "Downtown is still finding the niche of what it wants to be. In two years I think it will have really started exposing itself."
He predicts a major retail player, such as Crate & Barrel, will locate there, succeed, then a flood of other retail giants will follow.
Presently, most of the downtown businesses are competing for the same gross dollar.
Like many restaurants there, Peppers makes the majority of its income in three hours at lunchtime because so many people work in the area, but not many live there.
"There’s only so much population here," Talamantes said. "There’s no night crowd."
His downtown vision includes better lighting, newer sidewalks with covered walkways and better parking: a giant outside shopping mall, he said.
"In cities like Chicago and San Francisco, walking is part of the fun," he said.
They have unique shopping options and distinctive characters.
"Vancouver’s downtown needs to be more user-friendly," Talamantes said. "Ease of use promotes more usage."
But since Talamantes opened Peppers Taqueria more than 12 years ago, downtown has made a dramatic turnaround.
When he opened the fresh-Mex restaurant, it was an immediate success because the market was begging for a restaurant like it, he said. At the time, the only Mexican restaurants were fancy chains and authentic mom and pop eateries, he said.
Downtown needed a place with high-quality, low-cost food with quick turnaround because most employees had half-hour lunch breaks.
Growing up in the Bay Area of California, running a restaurant was Talamantes’ childhood dream. As a 13-year-old, he wanted to open a McDonald’s or Burger King, but they required $65,000 and that you be an adult, he said.
When he moved to the area to play football at Oregon State University, he saw an untapped market.
It has continued to be successful because the downtown work population has grown tremendously although the living population is still miniscule, he said.
Talamantes is hoping that work population needs a bar with good atmosphere until a residential population moves into downtown.
The space currently holds about eight tables and soon a few couches, and three plasma screen TVs are mounted on the wall. It’s not loud or intimidating, just comfortable.
Finding good help and learning to play with the ratios of running a bar have been the hardest part, Talamantes said.
"With the restaurant, no one is going to eat 10 burritos," he said. "But they could drink 10 drinks. As with any business, controlling the ratios controls the cost."
He has plenty of vision of how he’d like the bar to evolve, but it’s kind of like downtown:
"I built it, and it will mature into what it needs to be," he said. "One step at a time."
