The Yellow Deli

Roughly 100 km outside of Vancouver, through the Fraser Valley toward the interior, sits the township of Chilliwack. Home to some 100,000 residents, bordered to the north and south by mountains, and surrounded by large swathes of farmland, one might easily say that there isn’t all that much there as they pass through on the number 1 highway headed to the Okanagan Valley, Calgary, or other parts of Canada. Chilliwack is a place that not a lot of people intend to go to but often end up, and from 2007 to 2019 it had been the home of my parents which brought me out to visit from time to time. The smell of Chilliwack can be sensed all the way from Abbottsford with that delicate soupcon of freshly laid manure, but despite the smell, outside of the somewhat plain and rundown downtown, many parts of Chilliwack do, in fact, delight the visitor with their rural simplicity and bucolic charm. From Sumas to Hope, the environs of Chilliwack are best known for wide open rangelands, greenhouses, chicken farmers, milking sheds, and fields of endive. Chilliwack town has it’s five corners with some local restaurants, meat markets, dress shops, a heritage museum and thrift stores, but the community continues to swell and outlet stores, Walmarts, and megamalls have begun to spring up on the city’s outskirts.

In the spring of 2019 I had headed out to Chilliwack this time to, not only inter my father and grandmother who had passed away within three years of each other, but also assess all of the keepsakes and memorabilia that they had held onto since relocating from Montreal. With the house on the market, in a month’s time my mother would be moving from her three-storey home into a tiny 500 square foot apartment. These last stages of the move meant that more things were headed out of the house than into it. As a result, there was little in the larder and fridge at which point, after loading up another pile of boxes to ship off to goodwill, my mother suggested we go for lunch at The Yellow Deli.

Blink and you could miss it. Surrounded by strip malls, automobile dealerships and franchises of mega corporations like MacDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts you’d be hard pressed to think of the modest Yellow Deli as a global operation, or even anything special for that matter – but it is.

Built around the frame of an old radiator factory, massive hundred-year-old wood beams impress upon the diner that one has stepped into a Swiss cottage in the mountains more than the steel skeleton of a once industrial designed, function before form, manufacturing plant. Curtains of woven rope knots divide the tables, which are made from a one-foot thick slice of tree trunk, from one another. A wood fire roars from an old stone chimney at one end and each table is lit by lamp with an overturned basket for a shade upon which is written an identifying virtue. On this occasion my mother and I were seated at the “kindness” table although we would have been just as happy had we been seated at “truthfulness”, “faithfulness”, “gentleness” or “wisdom”.

The Yellow Deli boasts being open 24/5. Who would deign to visit at 4am on a Wednesday I can’t even imagine, but the Yellow Deli would be open and serving the full menu should it tickle your fancy. The only time they are not open is when the Sabbath hits at which point all its workers, in fact the entire community of the Yellow Deli, rests. The Yellow Deli, is the business arm of the companion homestead and ranch of the Twelve Tribes of Israel located on Fairfield island some 10 kilometers away.

Our server Ya’aneh had been raised in the community of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. After leaving the community at age fifteen for 10 years to experience the world, he eventually realized that the world didn’t have much to offer but a rat race often spent in selfish consumerism and ultimate isolation from the things that were truly important. He eventually returned to the community, is married and has children, and now works at the Yellow Deli as well as other small businesses organized by the community for which he does not earn a single cent. He is, however, co-owner of the deli and all of the other businesses that the community run and all of the profits generated by the deli and their various businesses goes back into the community. On the farmstead on Fairfield Island, Kohlev showed us their circular meeting hall where all members of the community gather to talk and share ideas and feelings. All members of the community, including the children, take part equally in the proceedings and are encouraged to speak their mind and share. And every Friday this nightly meeting is open to the public to come and dance and share stories.

As Ya’aneh explained, members usually come to the community looking for a life of giving and sharing that stays at a minimum safe distance, but not excluded, from the hustle and bustle and daily stresses of modern society. “It’s an attempt to return to the way of life as set out by “Yoshua” (Jesus) and his twelve disciples” Ya’aneh explained. All the men have beards and pony tails and warm smiles. Kohlev was excited, and not at all bothered, when my mother and I arrived on the farmstead unannounced and a young girl named Sebaev, riveted by the unexpected interruption to her homeschooling, was only too eager to introduce us to the goats, sheep and chickens. Kohlev, was from Calgary originally and had been working in the modern world in various businesses in his twenties before he found the community admitting that he had never really been happy before he found the Twelve Tribes.

Fare is simple but fills the soul. Sandwiches, soups, salads, all day breakfast, and deserts and dense breads they bake from scratch are all that’s on the menu but all of it is done with a delicate touch of authenticity, a kind word, and a genuine smile. On this day I had a Reuben, which they don’t typically serve with Thousand Island dressing but were happy to oblige, and my mother had a curried yam soup and simple farmer’s salad with cheese and chunks of turkey. They also specialize in yerba mate and yerba lattes which they have specially imported by their Twelve Tribes of Israel community in Brazil. There are sections of the Twelve Tribes scattered all over Canada, The United States and the world and there just might be a Yellow Deli located out in a community 100 kilometers away from where you live.