The Yellow Deli — Restaurant in Courtenay

Well this is a kookie place that was totally unexpected.haven't been to common grounds for a while and didn't realize that they had reverted back to the old yellow deli. The inside is really interesting, full of handcrafted reclaimed wood tables that are hand-painted and shellacked and then really interesting jute macrame creations. Create a booth like atmosphere. That combined with the religiosity undertones of the place, stained glass with iconography and laid back,ever so laid back service made this a really interesting place for a early evening tea stop on a cooler summer night.

I had a peppermint tea and it came in full on branded mug complete with in-house branded teabag. I know there's an entire back story about these places which involve a lot of really happy people living and farming on communes internationally and so that I guess is where the t comes from. And where your payment for food service goes.

a lot of interesting options that should cover pretty much everybody, except people that I have a big food avoidance list like I do.they do offer gluten-free, but the server didn't really know much about it.

My friend had an amazing piece of coconut pie.unfortunately I am allergic so I wasn't able to have a sample but I had her describe it and it sounded amazing. Graham cracker base with a coconut custard that had actual chunks of pineapple meat in it as well as a coconut cream topping with roasted coconut flakes on top. Basically all the coconut you can handle.

I had peppermint tea. And as you can likely guess, it tasted like peppermint.

no complaints really just thought the server was really laid-back. There was only one other table to look after and it took a good 20 minutes for my friend to get a piece of her pie. So he must have forgot or something or you know, doing something in the back.

Anyhow I would recommend it as a place that has a beautiful ambience especially if you are fortunate to get out seated on the deck and do try and make it when it is later in the evening and the Sun is going down as there are beautiful trees with the light coming through.

Probably good for families as well as...

Popped by to pick up a quick take lunch so we could go to comox bluff. Got there a few minutes before they opened. As soon as the gun went off, we were the second customers in the restaurant. Browsed the menu and put in our order by 12:10-ish.

By 12.40pm we were still waiting for our sandwiches and salad. At 12:50 asked to pay and asked if it was going to take any longer. Server asked the kitchen if he could take the order sheet so he could ring in our orders but they were still needing it to make our sandwiches 🤦🏻‍♀️

Server was friendly and did apologized but also explained they had an influx of customers although we were the second set of customers in.

By the time we got our food and were walking to our car we noticed the customers who were the ones before us (1st set of customers) were leaving so they had time to eat and pay in the same time we had to wait for our sandwiches and walked to our car.

Also notched that other customers who arrived after us were eating.

So anyways ended up bringing the food to our hotel since it started raining. Brought out our sandwiches which were packed in square cardboard take out boxes and the sandwiches were wrapped in foil. Suppose to get a choice of chips or coleslaw even though we order chips two of us only got a sandwich and nothing else. One got coleslaw and chips and one hot chips as ordered. Chips weren’t super crispy. Only ok.

We had ordered the chicken sandwich (wasn’t bad), some lamb sandwiches with cheese (kids indicated it was ok) and a roast beef (hubby indicated good but small).

Not sure what the big draw...

SERIOUS WARNING

So, to be honest, the food is really tasty! It's a little expensive, but who isn't in Canada? The manner of construction makes eating in a unique experience.

However...

There was something really off with the place. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. The staff was way over welcoming, and a little creepy. The whole time it was just very uneasy for me.

So oh boy, was I shocked when I looked into this later. I had heard rumors around town that they were a cult, but I had no idea how deep the rabbit hole goes. It made me feel really uncomfortable that finding their food tasty to be a method of cult recruitment and brainwashing- almost like a fairytale. Don't bring your vulnerable relatives here, seriously.

I don't want to make any claims, and I hope the people who work here aren't too closely associated with some of the various federal investigations on the child abuse, racism, etc perverting their ideology. Not to mention it seems like they're trying to recruit people for a mass suicide?? They seem to try quite a bit to keep their core ideological beliefs secret to the outside, which somewhat indicates some of their views are so extreme that the society would condemn them.

I just like good food, and luckily there are plenty of other great places to eat around town without brainwashing included. Based off my research, I wish I could give them 1 star. But that would be biased, because to be fair the food is tasty, truly sad that I won't be eating here again.

I hate to make such a serious review like this, but honestly I'm shocked after...