Shasta Cafe Vibes and a Yard Sale Treasure
Today I went to a yard sale… which isn’t that strange because I’ve always loved going, and in fact it’s often a Saturday pastime for my cousin Bev and me. But today was different because I was going to the house that had a yard sale last week and was knocking on the door asking about an item I’d seen the previous week. But I wasn’t asking for myself, I was asking about it for someone I’ve never met. Let me get to the beginning of the story.
Here is the bowl that I saw at last week’s yard sale. I’m not sure who, maybe the lady who was having the sale, mentioned that the Shasta Cafe was in Edmonton in 1910. That was interesting, but I wasn’t in the market for the bowl.
Then, on Historic Edmonton (a Facebook page), four days later, I saw a man posting a picture of a Shasta Cafe saucer that he’d just bought. What are the odds that I’d see a bowl for a place I knew nothing about, and suddenly I see another piece of dishware, not even a week later? So there was some chatting on the Facebook page about my seeing the bowl and that I probably could get it still if it hadn’t sold. The gentleman said he wanted it, and another person said they’d take it too. So now you’re up to date on why I was knocking on this lady’s door.
But you know me, I’m always ready for a good rabbit hole, so where was this place called the Shasta Cafe? My family has lived in Edmonton since the early 1900s; they may have gone there.
Edmonton Journal, December 8, 1916, page 17 from Newpapers.com
This ad states that it was located on Jasper and McDougall, but the actual address was 10009 Jasper Avenue, and it was on the next block to the MacDonald Hotel. The MacDonald Hotel was built between 1912 and 1915, and in fact, my paternal great-grandfather, Jesse Oliver, put the flashing on the roof of the hotel. So that would have likely been more in the 1914-1915 timeframe, so definitely he could have gone there to eat.
1908 Edmonton Henderson Directory
My maternal great-grandparents, Ellen and Francis Middlebrough, had worked in housekeeping and as a porter at the Pendennis Hotel in 1908, when they first arrived in Canada. The Pendennis was just a few blocks away from the cafe, just down the street from the MacDonald Hotel. They not only worked at the Pendennis, but they lived on the premises, so if the Shasta had opened before 1910, they may have at least walked past this restaurant.
Newspapers.com is filled with classified ads for waitresses and cashiers and kitchen help, and notices of bowling and curling teams. The Shasta was the place to have banquets and was in business in Edmonton for many years. It might have closed for a while because in 1948, I saw an article saying the restaurant was back in business after a massive renovation costing $30,000 Canadian (equivalent to $400,000 today), and that the Shasta was at the time considered Edmonton’s most modern eating establishment.
Sometime in the 1960s, it would seem that the Shasta Cafe closed as the newspaper article and advertisements stopped, and in the 1970s, there were only a few references to the Shasta Cafe. However, here we are in 2025, and there are still people collecting dishware and writing about a restaurant that has been closed for 60-plus years.
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