The exhaust hoods are still hanging in rows at Lansdowne Centre. Everything that used to sit under them is gone.
Happy Lamb Hot Pot closed its Richmond mall location on July 21, and a crew has since stripped the unit back to a shell.
If you missed the first round of this, here is the short version.
Notices went up on the restaurant’s windows in late June announcing a closure and a relocation, with the Lansdowne location giving way to a new address on Alexandra Road.
That new address is 8251 Alexandra Road, a unit we have been watching since April.
It was originally slated for Bellwether, a Seattle Korean barbecue chain, before that project fell through and Happy Lamb signage went up instead.
The plan there is bigger than a straight move, because the Alexandra Road location is set to be the only Happy Lamb in Metro Vancouver running a grill menu alongside the hot pot.
That is the part worth being patient about.
It is also the part that is running late.
We walked past the Alexandra Road unit recently and it does not look close to opening.
Nobody has said how long the gap will be.
Back at Lansdowne, the emptied room is a reminder of how much restaurant gets built into a space like this.
The stainless exhaust hoods are still suspended in a grid down the length of the ceiling, one for every table that used to be there.
The floor is bare apart from the fittings left behind where those tables were bolted in.
No coming-soon banner has gone up yet, so who takes it is still an open question.
Happy Lamb’s Lansdowne location now joins other recently closed Richmond food spots like Jiang Jiang at Parker Place, Mino Sushi Conveyor, and Bruno at the Versante Hotel.
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Address: Happy Lamb Hot Pot, Lansdowne Centre, 5300 No. 3 Road, Richmond (closed July 21).
New location: 8251 Alexandra Road, Richmond, BC V6X 4A8.