Harbour Centre — Attraction in Vancouver

Harbour Centre is a skyscraper in the central business district of Downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada which opened in 1977. The "Lookout" tower atop the office building makes it one of the tallest structures in Vancouver and a prominent landmark on the city's skyline. With its 360-degree viewing deck, it also serves as a tourist attraction with the Top of Vancouver Revolving Restaurant, offering a physically unobstructed view of the city.

Harbour Centre is located at 555 West Hastings Street in Downtown Vancouver. It is steps away from Waterfront Station, a major multi-modal transit hub which serves as the Downtown Vancouver terminal for various TransLink operations including SeaBus, West Coast Express, SkyTrain, Canada Line and buses. Simon Fraser University operates its downtown Harbour Centre campus in the adjoining Spencer building and houses the Center for Dialogue and Canadas World.

Vancouver Coast Guard Radio operates from Harbour Centre, providing distress watch and vessel traffic services to the North Arm Fraser River, Burrard Inlet, Indian Arm, English Bay and Howe Sound.

The downtown Simpsons-Sears department store was located here before it closed in 1987.

During the dot-com boom of the 1990s, it served as the headquarters for several tech firms, including Stormix Technologies, NetNation and others.

Designed by WZMH Architects, the building is listed as being 28 stories tall, though the tower/observation deck extends above the 28 office floors (claimed to be approximately 44 stories in total). There is some disagreement as to the building's height. According to the Vancouver Lookout's website the observation deck is 168 m (551 ft) above the 'street level'. The CTBUH however lists the buildings architectural height as actually being 147 m (482 ft). Furthermore, Skyscraperpage lists the buildings height to the roof as being only 139.6 m (458 ft).[3] This is stated to be the height from the Hastings Street entrance while the height from the back entrance on Cordova Street is 146 m (479 ft). It also lists the buildings pinnacle height to the tip of the antenna as being 170.1 m (558 ft).

The building was British Columbia's tallest measured by pinnacle height until the construction of Living Shangri-La in 2009.

The Vancouver Lookout tourist attraction, located atop the Harbour Centre business building, was officially opened on August 13, 1977 by Neil Armstrong, whose footprint was imprinted onto cement and was on display on the viewing/observation deck until it was lost (or stolen) during renovations. Glass elevators whisk visitors 168 meters (553 feet) skyward from street level to the Observation Deck in 40 seconds.

In Beyond Belief, a group of young teenage girls ride the famous glass elevator to the top to dine at the fictional "Above the Clouds" restaurant and the elevator breaks down. (S04E13 - "Above the Clouds"). Harbour Centre can also be seen in the Arrow episode "Dark Waters". The Harbour Centre is visible in the background along with the rest of the downtown Vancouver skyline at the beginning of The X-Files episode "2Shy". This building was also filmed in some episodes from the original MacGyver TV series in and around Vancouver. This building also had some shots from the TV Series Danger Bay. There were also some shots from the Schwarzenegger film The 6th Day and the film...

Some time had passed since my last visit. Not much has changed. I think this place needs a bit of TLC. We arrived and there was no one to great us. We could hear a voice, someone talking perhaps over the phone, just steps away. I said "Hello" twice. Nothing. Finally a guy came from somewhere else and took care of us. We had a reservation so we were taken to our table. The restaurant was practically empty, probably because it was past 8pm. The server came shortly after and after giving us some "Covid19 guidelines" , took our order. She was nice,polite, explained well the menu options and that day's specials, which made no sense since one of the so called special was on the menu, with the exact same price. Food arrived promptly. I have to say the food was good but not impressive. I did however, enjoy the Avocado and Lobster Salad appetizer. Very nicely done! Desserts were good. What I loved the most? Most certainly the views from up there! That is the main reason to go to a revolving restaurant! Vancouver from above, night time, during Christmas, with buildings, balconies and even construction cranes decorated with Christmas lights? Oh yes! What I did not like was the fact that my wine glass was dirty, on the inside. I did not notice that but after taking a sip. I mentioned to the server who apologized for that. Very well until then. My surprise was to see what she did after: she simply grabbed another clean wine glass and poured out my wine from the dirty glass, into the clean one! I was so shocked to see that, that I could not say anything to her. I can't say this has happened very often to me but it has happened. The difference is that, when that happened, the server brought me a clean wine glass and poured more of the wine I had ordered, instead of pouring wine from one dirty glass to a clean one! It is not that I had drank all the wine either since I noticed the dirty glass right away. Regardless, it is wrong to do what the server did. And no, it was not the "house wine" . I hope they read this and review...

Of course incredible views on the clear day, not so great on a cloudy day, but it was still fun to be up there.

Went with a friend visiting from out of town, and we had lunch. $58 for two course lunch which was the offer. The food was okay, definitely not outstanding. The clam chowder which we both had as our appetizer was quite salty, and lacked clams, and lukewarm as opposed to hot fresh out the pot. The restaurant was not busy as we were the first to arrive.

My friend had the lamb kebabs and I had the salmon. Again not fabulous, the lamb kebabs were a bit on the dry side and the salmon was definitely overcooked. Our server who was pleasant enough when she took our order and brought our food, seem to forget that we existed after that.

Nobody check to see how we were enjoying our meal.

We didn't let the mediocre meal detract from our visit. We enjoyed our time together, we enjoyed being up in the Harbor Center looking down from so high up, but all in all it was a disappointment. I wouldn't purposely choose to go there for a meal again, as after a glass of wine and a tip, spending close to $100 each, I could have gotten significantly much better food somewhere else for less, in fact a couple days later we went to The Keg in Yaletown, and had an outstanding dinner, for considerably less, with excellent service, which by the way included a drink and dessert and a tip!

I really wish I could give the Harbor Center a much better review for their food and service, as it is a fun experience to go up and eat in a restaurant that very slowly revolves...