At age 81, Walter Wolff says it's time for him to retire from the business of cooking comfort food at Fresgo Inn, the Surrey restaurant he's run for 45 years.
Longtime customers will be happy to hear that the new owners don't plan to change much at the diner, which Wolff has operated in the corner unit of a strip mall on King George Boulevard, across from Central City Shopping Centre.
Back in 1980, the mall was known as Surrey Place, King George was a highway, and Wolff was doing business at two Fresgo Inn restaurants, one in Whalley and another at an older location in the West End of Vancouver.
"My story here is coming to an end now, but there's a new story starting with the new owners," Wolff told the Now-Leader on Tuesday (March 4).
"They like to do everything that I like to do, and they're going to keep things the same," he emphasized. "I'm 45 years in the business here, so everything is proven."
Always adorned in a chef’s hat, the North Vancouverite has worked at Fresgo Inn 12 hours a day nearly every day of the year, except Christmas.
Originally from Germany, Wolff moved to Montreal to be a chef during Expo 67 before a trip west to Edmonton. By 1970, with a restaurant name that combined the words 'fresh' and 'go,' he opened the first Fresgo Inn on Davie Street, but sold it in 2012 to focus on his Whalley location.
Deceptively large, 12,000-square-foot space is where he made and baked most things in-house – bread, buns, hamburger patties, cakes, Shepherd’s pie, cabbage rolls and more. The mountainous mushroom burger is “legend,” Wolff agrees, but another dish is the top-seller at a joint where dieters probably find it difficult to order.
“The things we make, they are individual, you know,” Wolff said in 2020. “Nobody makes cabbage rolls, or liver. Nobody sells that any more, but we do – it’s a big seller! My top seller is schnitzel. For 30 years I didn’t put it on (the menu), but now you can’t find it anywhere else. I sell Shepherd’s pie, I sell stew – comfort food, yeah, and people come in for a coffee or a big meal, we treat them the same.”
The new Fresgo Inn owner-operator is Arminder Singh, who lives on the Surrey/Langley border and helps run nine Indian-cuisine restaurants in B.C. under the Ustaad G 76 name, including three in Surrey.
"Fresgo, it will be the same as before, nothing will change here, no food changes, maybe only the furniture at some point, but not for a few months," Singh promised. "Maybe later on we'll open more (restaurants) under this name."
Wolff says he's "upset to leave" the restaurant business, "because the community and people were so good to me, and it's very hard to let it go. I feel like I'm breaking up a family. When they hear the news, people come to me like they're going to cry. To let go, it's very hard, but at my age, I've got to draw the line somewhere."
Wolff's final day at Fresgo Inn is "probably" March 14, he said, leaving a few days for goodbyes.
"I don't say much more than hi and bye, thanks for coming in — I'm too busy working," he said with a laugh.
"But now I have to look after my body. At my age you've always got some problems. That's part of this. My doctor can't believe that I still stand on my feet 12 hours a day, you know. My kids ask why I do it, and it's because I love it, I love this business, that's why. Money is the second thing."
