20 East Hastings Street. You may still get a glimpse of Only, Vancouver's loveable neon seahorse. A half a century old as a living piece of neon, eighty-five years old as a Vancouver cafe and in the oceans known since the beginning of time. He's a survivor, and has been doing faithful duty, keeping a keen eye up and down East Hastings Street /skid road, near Carrall Street, since 1950.
The street is short-wave. He talks to your face in the empty space and hits your heart. I love him. When I see him I hear tin-drums and bugles blowing in the winds. He has mustard and marrow; links one scene to another. A blinking arrow. He's The Only. Vancouver's neon signature. An inspired design. Only the seahorse has no enemies and is always friendly. He is still working on this dry edge of the perishing pond, this breathtaking cultural underseascape, and has an amazing story to tell us..
 As the century turns over, Only is nearly vanquished, as most of the other masterful neon friends in this once ocean of neon have dissolved. 'Ah, those heady days,' indeed. The lively scripted B.C. Electric Company neon above the entrance to the Hastings and Carrall main depot of the Interurban belt-car tramline. Their twelve-foot high regal neon crowns up-top. And a favourite ally, the flaming flight of the red Blue Eagle up the street since 1944. How about the drama of hundreds of flashing white light-bulbs on the face of the very ornate, 1917, 2000 seat Pantages Theatre that becomes the elegant early neon-art on the vertical marquee of the Beacon Theatre in 1930, transforming to the forty-foot high, curved-onto-the-roof, Hastings Odeon neon marquee by 1946 and converting to the Majestic in 1954. The high-turning, bright dance of the famous'W'’ in the sky over Woodward’s mainmast store. Such a show-off! The cool smirk of the levitating Smilin’ Buddha casting his spell on the late-night slope of the strip. Always comical and mystic. What fun, then. The whole gang. Charms on a chain in bright street night.
Now, a solo waterfall hair-do character leans in linger against the wall. Upstairs still, a learn-to-dance-in-28-steps recreational studio, one time lunch counter and poker tables of the Loggers Social Club (Con Jones Tobacco in '36 and '37, Western Club in '38, Broadway Social Club by '44). The worn double doors to the International Billiards Hall (originally 1916 Brunswick Pool Room) hold empty turf below. A lock and chain latch them shut. Once, Chinatown gang boys go in and out the alleyway doors. And the store shell of Seven Little Tailors (next door to the Ten Cent Cafe in 1933) recently disappears in a wrinkle, across the street up Carrall. For decades, the bush-camp boys coming to town on payday may get a haircut and a shave at Al Principe's Pigeon Park Hub Barber Shop, get a tooth pulled at Painless Parker's, perhaps buy a pair of custom caulk boots at N.J. Bonte Logger's World, get a hat boxed at Wong Goon's Modernized Tailors or a shoeshine at Frank Lastoria's Broadway Hotel (now the Sunrise Hotel) six-chair shoeshine stand for 20¢...but first and foremost a visit to the Only Seafood Cafe. A famous bowl of chowder, a stack of fresh bread, butter scooped onto your plate and perhaps a batch of pepper-stewed oysters, mussels or buttered crab, heap of clams, fried or boiled halibut? Fresh boiled potatoes makes your visit a meal. No mean bush-camp cook-shack.
 Inside, you enter a small, elegant, high wall, deep mirror room with an ornamental tin ceiling that has the comfortable ghosts of a classy joint. On any day or night, all seasons and weather, one encounters an exuberant crowd from all walks of life. Often a little cue standing along the wall inside, patiently waiting for a prized spot. The Only, a unique room of social closeness, an unspoken oath of humanity prevails. Everyone seems to tread lightly. Humble. There is never a fight in the Only. You are somewhere special in the Only. Magic is in the air. The bright chowder-house lights and the wall mirrors make everyone feel a little famous. You could be sitting next to or across from anybody. Rumour says Allan Ladd has his last meal at the Only. Just seventeen chrome button swivel chair-stools on a horseshoe-and-a-half counter, two booths at the back and no washrooms (a grandfather clause permits this, since their original business license is issued prior to the city by-law requiring one). No alcohol, no credit cards, no cheques policy. And nobody too drunk to sit up and eat.
Outside in the rain and wind, doing his swish and swirl in the rainbow reflections and gleam of passing automobiles, Only holds his head with dignity. Earnest and compelling, he is one of the only remaining, fully-operative neon installations on the Hastings skid-road glory trail. All tubes in prime working order and underpainted bright and fresh. Pink seahorse neon over green-painted, wavy-edged body spots, sailing along on a wave of royal blue ocean with a bright yellow backdrop and alternating red and yellow bulbs trimming the edges, he is still on the books of the Neon Products antique sign roster. Leased to the cafe for the goodwill price of $52 a month. His rate has been the same for many years, paying for himself many times over.
'Timer', Goodwin, a senior "in the field" painter who begins with the progressive Vancouver company Neon Products, billed as 'Manufacturers of Electric Advertising', in 1943, remembers being involved in more than one of the many sessions of putting a new spring coat on the unique, prestigious sign - a double-faced projection that hangs off the building with wire cables and angle iron. Timer Goodwin's dad, John A., starts in the neon field with the same firm in 1932, working for 46 years. Timer works for 47-and-a-half years spending many summer seasons on the road maintaining and repainting lease signs throughout B.C. and into Alberta. For a period, Timer keeps the company records for all the daily maintenance and lease entries in a ledger with an ink fountain pen. His dad performs this duty in the earlier days. Timer is one of a team of 39 painters employed by the firm in the most active period of the late 1950s. When Timer begins in '43 he is paid 24 1/2¢ an hour for a 44-hour work week. By 1963 he has risen to a journeyman painter and is earning 95¢ an hour or about $160 a month.
Vancouver's most famous and beloved archetypal cafe the Only. A keeper of secrets.
 Only the seahorse, in the lead role of the East Hastings Street neon drama, is the symbol of the longest surviving, family-owned cafe in Vancouver. His appearance is preambled by a long fore-story dating back to humble beginnings. A young, Greek adventurer travels to Canada in 1907. Upon roaming from California to Alaska on the miners’ trails and returning to Portland from up north, Nickolas Thodos stops in Vancouver. Nick first works as a cook and 1/3 owner at the English Kitchen for four years, starting in 1914. It's a popular early restaurant in Vancouver, just up the strip at 30 East Hastings. He lives at the Patricia Hotel. Gustave, his brother, shows up and joins him at the English Kitchen as a waiter in 1916 and stays at the West Hotel. 1916 is also the year the Vancouver Oyster Saloon is originated by Antonio Demetry, of the established Demetry and Seellis Company (fish, oysters and produce at 324 Main Street), in a former jewellery shop in the craftsman's-red-brick-relief, 1912 building at 20 East Hastings. The Thodos brothers acquire transfer of the establishment within the same year, and immediately list the name as The Only Cafe in the Vancouver City Business Register, retaining the name Vancouver Oyster Saloon for two years in the City Directory, suggesting a possible extended arrangement with Demetry.
They also form a business relationship, for one year, with Harry Griffiths, who has a 15-foot-deep frontal section of the room already under lease as a fast-serve waffle shop operation, and overtake this space by the following year. In 1918, the brothers are using the name Nic and Gus Restaurant for their venture in the City Directory. It is a bustling corner, just near the cavernous B.C. Electric Railway main terminus building, where the tracks run right inside and through the large, high-ceilinged waiting room that has a shoeshine chair, a news-stand and the Tram Coffee Shop. By 1923, Nick is primary proprietor and the establishment is named Only Fish & Oyster House. Gus moves on to purchase and run the Golden Gate Cafe just up the street at 130 East Hastings. Nick helms the Only until his death at 54 years old in 1935. A true pioneer of East Hastings Street. The business is alternately called The Only Fish Cafe, The Only Oyster Cafe and The Only Cafe. This establishment, overseen by the Thodos family, is run by managers under the direction of barrister Leo Bancroft, from the late 1930s through the '40s until the early '50s, when the second generation of the family becomes active in the day to day running of the cafe.
 Peter Thodos, Nick's first son, is a CFL half-back known for his 1948 Grey Cup touch-down for the Calgary Stampeders and holder of a thirty-year record for most return kicks.
Back in the beginning, Nick, when cooking, displays the skills and flair inherent in Greek tradition. "Men simply do the cooking," says Tyke Thodos, Nick's second son. The elder Thodos entrepreneurs originally expand the room and create the elegant feel with the high, ornamental tin ceiling. They install a single, large, square-cornered horseshoe counter with eighteen stools. The room survives and prospers for 26 years like this. Nick has the old-world knowledge with fishes of the seas. He cuts out the center of a long loaf of french bread and stuffs it with oysters, garnishes with oregano, bakes golden and serves it. Says Tyke Thodos, "He could take a piece of shoe leather...let him cook it for you...and it will be good."
A curious shard of foreshadow occurs in 1938 when a policeman on a horse rides into the cafe in pursuit of someone seeking refuge, during the tear gas and baton mass labour rally on the Powell Street Grounds (Oppenheimer Park) that spills down the strip, over ten years before Only the seahorse makes his neon debut. In the 1930s, the Worker's Unity League and the Trade Union Hall are located across the street. The United Fisherman’s Union is at 162 East Hastings. The Communist Party of Canada is located in the Burns Block at 1 West Hastings. Vancouver is emerging as a labour town. The Holden Building, next door to the Only Cafe, becomes the City Hall in 1929 for about seven years. This building houses a full slate of Union Council headquarters in the late '20s into the '40s. They include Plumbers and Steamfitters, Barbers, Building Trades, Bridge and Structual Iron Workers, Carpenters and Joiners, Sheet Metal Workers, Milkdrivers and Dairy Employees, Teamsters, Bricklayers and Masons, Train and Enginemen Brotherhood, Canadian Seamen, Native Brotherhood of B.C., Bakery and Confectionery, Vancouver District Miners, Inlandboatsmen and Steam and Operating Engineers. The Sultan Baths are located in the basement.
 In the late '30s and early '40s, 'DON'T ARGUE', a shoeshine stand located at 612 West Hastings, dominates the Only Cafe building facade with a fully-charged, neon, frontal advertising display, that includes caricature neon of one man pushing his hand into the face of another man.
In 1950, Tyke Thodos takes over and runs the show at the Only with spunk and new flair through the pinnacle years of the '50s, '60s and '70s...right up until about 1992.
Business trickles down to zero-zone, after the boom and bust -fast forward - Expo '86, and the reinventing of the transit corridor from points east, down Hastings Street to the sky-train funnel into uptown Granville and the West End. "The area went to hell...I closed it down...I was losing my ass," says Tyke, as only an old man can say who has seen it all, with a tinge of anger and a wagon of melancholy in tow. When the time arrives to let it go, Wendy Wong, a one-year waitress, steps in and takes over the ownership of the archive cafe. She has good advice from her sister Lois, who is the main waitress and a loyal daily fixture at the Only for 25 years.
Tyke reflects back to 1950, "Everything was neon then." He remodels the facilities - redesigning the counters and building the two booths at the back, increasing the seating to 25 for a full house.
 The neon seahorse, as a design and craft, comes from the era of exciting, creative inventiveness in the art and sales departments of both Neon Products, led by Lew Parry, art director, and their main competition, Wallace Neon, that makes the same-decade 'Ho Ho' sign, and has a semi-lock on the Chinatown neon business. Sticking-out signs are the rage in the 1950s, and are banned by the mid-'60s for their perceived vulgar behaviour. Only the seahorse grows in popularity into eventual world fame. It is written up in many magazines including Gourmet out of New York, and is a feature on Japan television. Photographed thousands of times, it is one of the most important surviving pieces of neon in the world today. The symbol of Vancouver's oldest operating cafe.
In the upswing of the '50s, Tyke Thodos buys his oysters from a friend who has an oyster farm on Thetis Island. For other fish, he goes to Campbell Avenue Fish Dock, where Lions Gate Fish Co. and Fisherman’s Co-op supply him with fresh catch daily by delivery. Paying 21¢ a lb. for Halibut and 25¢ a lb. for Salmon, he sells 35-40 pounds in prepared orders a day. Black Alaska cod at $10.00 a lb. now -it is 35-40¢ then. Lingcod 10¢ a lb. Clams $4.00 a lb. now - 1950s 10¢ a lb. At the Only they sell 50-60 pounds of steamed clams a day. From this comes the secret of their famous clam chowder soup... the clam nectar. "If you haven’t got that...you got nothing," says Tyke Thodos, Vancouver’s long-time chowder king. "Add in the onions, potatoes and celery...and that's it." And the savvy. It comes piping hot and steamy and always with that stack of good bread, for 15¢ a big bowl full in the '50s. Your choice of thick white or whole wheat, a class act. The bread first comes from 4X Bakery until they go on strike, and then for many years, Golf's Bakery on Robson and Thurlow, and when they go out of business - Swiss Bakery on Davie Street, and continues when they move to 4th and Burrard.
 The Only is a bright spot, always there and always ready. Endearing. People drive from outlying Point Grey or Marpole or Burnaby, and leave with a smile to want to come again. Open from 11:30 a.m. to midnight. Always closing Sundays 'til the 1980s.
The Only never does make or offer fish and chips, or chips alone until the '70s. Hugely popular are the halibut cheeks that the Only is the first to introduce into Vancouver in the '70s.
Gin Hong Wong is the night-shift cook for thirty years, his face etched in the collective memory of thousands. He comes directly from China when he begins in the early '50s as a dishwasher.
The day shift cook, Sam the Bulgarian fellow, is a familiar sight under the tall, puffy, white chef hat, day in - day out, at the Only. He has a gift of pinching the back of the neck of any drunk that may fall into a slumber on a stool, one little pinch and the fellow is instantly awake and bright-eyed. It works every time.
Our seahorse soothsayer can see forward and backward at the same time. He is a social aqua-lung breathing through the worldly scales of octaves, highs and lows, all those human hebejebes of his submarine street, without a qualm. A true fish. The last true creature of charm on a broken chain of neon. He sleeps with eyes wide open. He is the always-awake one on this crossing-corner of the travellers of up and down. Doldrums and Quicksand.
Only the seahorse...Vancouver's wide awake corner head-horse carries on, for all the unfinished lives, and is still a friendly guy.
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