Two stalls of the same Hong Kong cafe now sit in one Burnaby food court, and only one of them has the line.
One Cafe soft opened its second Crystal Mall stall on August 8, taking over the unit that Kingspark Good Food closed in June after 18 years in the same food court.
We walked by over the weekend expecting a slow start.
Instead the new stall had a wall of people in front of it.
The reason is on the menu board.
The new stall runs the full One Cafe lineup, the all day breakfast sets and the cha chaan teng classics that built the brand.
The older stall, which opened in June, has been narrowed down to one job.
It now handles the baked dishes almost exclusively, the baked pork chop with tomato sauce and the baked seafood in curry sauce.
A self order kiosk has appeared on that counter so you can punch in a baked rice, a spaghetti, or a drink without waiting on staff.
Its line is noticeably shorter than the one next door now.
That looks like a demotion and it is not.
Baked rice and baked spaghetti are the slowest things One Cafe makes, and every order of them holds the kitchen up while quicker tickets pile in behind.
Pulling those dishes into their own stall clears the bottleneck at the other one.
It is the closest thing a food court has to a second kitchen.
The expansion behind it has been fast.
One Cafe launched at Parker Place in Richmond in 2023 under the tagline Hong Kong On The Go, then spread to Empire Centre, Crystal Mall, and the Lansdowne Centre food court that opened in July.
Two stalls in Burnaby is a first for the group.
One Bolo, the spin off dedicated to pineapple buns, is still in the works at Empire Centre with no opening date attached.
One Cafe Crystal Mall joins other recently opened food spots around Burnaby and the North Road strip like Hungry Tiger Grill, Memory Corner, and Alfa Tea.
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Address: Crystal Mall food court, Burnaby, BC (former Kingspark Good Food unit)