Q & A with Socrates Diamant (he/him)
of the Vicious Poodle

By Victoria Pride Contributing Writer

We interviewed Socrates Diamant, Owner of the Vicious Poodle, to discuss his experience opening a queer space in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis.

How long have you been open now?

We opened on June 10, that’s a little bit more than a month now. You know, we were supposed to open at the beginning of April and, of course, that didn’t happen. So, it was a little bit of a white knuckle ride there. And then you open up and it’s like, “oh, are they gonna come? Are they gonna like it?”

What made you open despite the crisis?

You know, a lot of it is that there are bills to pay. I’ve invested a lot of money in the place, and I don’t want to lose it. We have very few queer spaces on the entire island lately. Even from the beginning before COVID, people really reached out, and like in huge numbers, were very excited about the space and wanted to be involved.

It was lovely to have all that outpouring of support and know that people were going to be behind it. It took a weight off my mind. You know, I’m like, okay, so people are going to come, there is a demand, as far as you know. I thought there was, I was pretty sure there was, and then you’re like, okay, there is.

Then, you know, we had the shutdown. We were unable to open and we were just looking ahead to when we could do it. We’ve been really lucky to have this little safe bubble on Vancouver Island, which feels like it’s going to pop any day now, right? But it’s nice to have gotten a month or two, at least, where we could get open, get things going, people could come in and check out the space and create another community point.

So you opened after the government relaxed their restrictions?

Yeah, it’s been going really well. Some of the days have been a little bit scary. We’re having to sit people down and everybody’s exuberant, they want to run around, they want to hug each other and they want to dance and they want to, you know, do all the things that we could do before COVID. And, we don’t have a huge capacity in here. I sort of gauge the size of the space for what I thought would be good, and of course now with COVID, we have a much lower capacity, so it’s made it harder to accommodate everyone.

I imagine opening night must have been hectic

It was crazy. And we still have had issues. Our drag Tuesdays are super popular. We’ve actually added a second show. We were just doing one show, and there was such a crush at night, and so many people couldn’t get in, again, because our capacity is so much lower, so we are doing an early show and a late show now, yeah, it’s kind of calmed it down. Now more people can come in and see the show, they can come in and enjoy the space right? Come in and see their friends. Without it becoming unsafe or having people think twice.

And having shows at different times must help open up availability.

Yes, a lot of people were really happy for it to be on a Tuesday night, people wanted to come, but they’re like “I work the next day”. So, yeah, we got a nice sort of a dinner crowd for the early show and drinks and a show for the late crowd.

Aside from the obvious, what have been your biggest obstacles?

Asides the obvious COVID one, you know, all the things that come with opening a new restaurant. There’s always hiccups and wrinkles that you have to work out. Getting our food where we want it and consistent, that’s just a matter of getting everybody trained up in the kitchen and those things take time. Sometimes things come out of the kitchen that you’re like, “Ah, that should never have gone out.” So you have to comp some stuff for people, and hopefully they’ll try us again.

Do you have plans for if the restrictions tighten back up again?

They’re going to tighten up again. Right? I have no doubt about that. And I also have a feeling that there might be another closure coming up. I wouldn’t be surprised at some point in the winter. So part of it is planning for that financially, and understanding that that’s a real possibility. Making sure that we’re able to weather that when that comes

We’ve been following all the guidelines, of course, and we have regular meetings with our staff to make sure that they’re comfortable with the protocols that we have in place and get suggestions from them. We’ve talked a lot to our patrons as well and what they’re comfortable with and what they would like to see. But, as the numbers start to go up, which we’re just barely starting to see that happen now, obviously, things’ll have to become tighter. And we have to clamp down a little bit more on people going from table to table and saying hi to their friend.

It can be rough, you know, and people want to come in and they want to come up to the bar and order a drink, and you can’t do that at this point. You have to sit in your seat, and everybody’s got to have a spot to be. We’ve got to make sure that you’re far enough apart. We’re doing contact tracing now. So we’re getting a name and phone number or contact information from one person at each party so that if that’s necessary, we have that information on hand. We’re currently not wearing masks, the staff. It’s optional right now, for the staff and the customers, it seems like that’s the way that people are liking it. I can see that that’s going to tighten up as well. We have masks on-premise, have since the very beginning. It’s about reading the environment and acting accordingly.

Has there been any financial support available for you from the government?

We qualify for nothing. All of the government programs are dependent on showing a drop in sales, and we have no historical sales because we are brand new, of course, so I have no way to do that. It’s a bit of a point of contention for me, I have just created 18 jobs in the middle of COVID, and everyone around me is getting rent subsidies and wage subsidies, interest-free loans that are partially forgivable, and we’re sitting here with no help at all.

That being said, we are in the Johnson street parkade here, and, so our landlord is the City of Victoria. And, while the federal government has not done anything, doesn’t have any programs that we fit into, nor the provincial government, the city has been super supportive of what we’re doing here.

I can’t say enough how thankful I am to the city for the way that they’ve helped us out, and the fact that the council and the staff in the real estate department and other departments of the city are so supportive of a queer space in the city. They’re so excited about another queer space, and they understand that that’s an important part of the Victoria community.

It is interesting that a city as progressive as Victoria has as few queer spaces as it does.

Yeah. Well, you know, opening a business is rough and It’s expensive. Some of the expenses are shocking, and so it takes the right mix to create a queer space in the first place. We’re still competing on all the other levels. It takes that right person with, you know, the experience and who’s managed to gather the capital to do it, and then also understands the needs of the queer community. It’s expensive here and the real estate market downtown is tight. I spent years looking for this space. I looked at a lot of different spaces and they were either huge, or they were too small, or they were outrageously expensive. It’s difficult to find that niche where everything works out just right.

It must be very satisfying to see this come to fruition.

It’s great. I found this space over a year ago. It took almost a year from finding the space and then going through the negotiation, then beginning the renovation and all that kind of thing.

So, though it may seem impossible, ignoring COVID for a second, what are you hoping to do going forward?

One of the things is, when I took over the space, the capacity in here was lower than the space had square footage for, just because that’s what the previous restaurant had. Expanding capacity and expanding hours sound like very simple things to do, but they’re actually really complicated. You know, to add more chairs and tables, I have to have an architect, draw me plans and then take that to the fire department. You can’t just draw it up. You have to have an architect stamp those plans. So, you know, there’s a couple of thousand dollars. Then the liquor board has to get involved, and if you’re going to expand capacity or expand hours, you have to go through a whole community process. This costs money and takes, you know, six to eight months of having signs posted out front.

I think over the course of the winter, we’re gonna embark on that. We might change our license to a liquor primary so that we can be a little bit more bar-like. That’s sort of where the community is pushing it. You know, people will never give up the food, I think it’s an important part of what we do. Yeah. But people seem to want it to be a little bit more bar-like.

What’s the most rewarding part of it all?

That every single day somebody takes me aside and thanks me for opening this place. Every single day.

Very sweet, is there anything else you’d like to add?

I think we’ve pretty much covered it. You know, it’s just, it’s worked out just the way I had envisioned it in my head. The crowd has been amazing, the energy in this room every day is so lovely. One of the things that we seem to be doing here, which in other cities has been very difficult to achieve, is that we have this eclectic mix from the queer community. We’ll have a table of lesbians, and a table of gay boys, and we have some trans individuals in, and we’re having the black and indigenous people of color in our community come in. We’re having all these people that are mixing together, occupying the space together, creating that community and having this incredible energy that is so positive and SO QUEER, that it makes me SO HAPPY.

Thank you so much Socrates for taking the time to talk to us!

 

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