The toilet. A necessity. A place of convenience — yes?
Try telling that to the people over at CHOP Steakhouse on St. Edward’s Drive in Bridgeport.
The restaurant has taken the modest lavatory and turned it into a land of luxury, complete with an eight-foot tall stone fountain carved with floral and animal artwork and leather couches.
Now the Richmond toilet is in the running to be crowned “Cintas’ Canada’s Best Restroom.”
A team of judges has narrowed down the top potties in the country to five, with CHOP and Vancouver’s Steamworks Bew Pub the B.C. contenders.
“It’s kinda neat, we’ve got pretty nice washrooms here,” said CHOP’s general manager, Eric Rudd.
“All the time, I hear people coming back from the washroom and saying ‘wow.’
“Many customers sit on the couches in there and work off their laptops and stuff and just relax. Our washrooms are a talking point for sure.”
CHOP’s lavish loo also boasts the same ambient lighting as the restaurant, flower arrangements and vaulted wooden ceilings with natural light peeking in overhead.
The public can get in on the water closet act also, by casting a ballot for their favourite washroom online at www.bestrestroom.com/canada through the end of November.
The contest site takes visitors on a photographic tour of each convenience. The winner of the 4th annual Cintas’ Canada’s Best Restroom Contest will be revealed later this fall and both the winner and runner-up will secure a place in a rather unique “Hall of Fame.”
Other finalists include: a gas station grocery store in Alberta that has geo-thermal heating and cooling technologies and granite countertops; a chocolate boutique in Toronto that has a heart-shaped, silver vanity mirror and a tea set suspended upside down from the ceiling and a French restaurant in Toronto that has vertical black-and-white striped wallpaper and tile along the bottom half of the walls.
Last year’s winner was the Langley Street Loo in Vancouver.
