Dollar Meat Store (元昌燒臘肉食公司)

The Dollar Meat Store on East Pender Street displays rows of roast ducks and pork hanging in the window behind a sign that reads Yuen Cheung. This shop has supplied Cantonese-style cured meats to the Strathcona neighborhood since the nineteen forties. While other businesses in Vancouver’s Chinatown evolved to serve changing demographics, the owners here stuck to the same traditional charcoal roasting methods for decades. Those ovens often sent plumes of smoke into the alleyway, signaling the afternoon rush for barbecue pork.