Government-supported cooking program provides affordable meals at this New Westminster diner

Dan’s Diner, a social enterprise located in downtown New West, offers packaged soups, stews, curries, chilis and other meal items that have been prepared by youth in a cook-training program.

In partnership with the Government of Canada, the province has announced it’s investing nearly $300,000 to support the cook-training project at Collingwood Neighbourhood House in Vancouver and Dan’s Diner Social Enterprise in New Westminster.

“The cook-training program turned my life around,” Isabel Atherton, a recent graduate of the program, said in a news release from the BC ministry of social development and poverty reduction. “The instructors encouraged me through every setback, celebrated every success and believed in me long before I believed in myself. I graduated and started my own baking business and am enrolling in culinary arts at LaSalle College in Vancouver.”

People facing multiple barriers to employment will receive hands-on training, work experience and wrap-around supports through the new cook-training program at the Collingwood Neighbourhood House. Three cohorts are being funded between May 2026 and April 2027 as part of the recent funding announcement.

“Dan’s Legacy Foundation is making a real difference in New Westminster through Dan’s Diner, which gives young people living in the Lower Mainland the opportunity to develop practical skills, gain workplace experience and build meaningful connections for careers in the food-services industry,” New Westminster-Coquitlam MLA Jennifer Whiteside stated in the release. “This nearly $300,000 government investment builds on that important work, helping participants of Dan’s Legacy job-training initiatives build self-esteem and maintain positive mental health through learning and belonging.”

Participants in the program will participate in a full-time, group-based program that includes employability preparation, occupational skills development and workplace experience. The training includes:

· Two weeks of essential and employability skills training

· 12 weeks of occupational skills training focused on prep cook and kitchen helper positions

· Two weeks of on-the-job work experience

· Follow-up employment support

Barbara Coates, executive director of Dan’s Legacy Foundation, said Collingwood Neighbourhood House has allowed the foundation to lease its commercial kitchen since the New West-based non-profit lost the use of a kitchen in New Westminster.

“The food is cooked at Collingwood,” she said. “It is transported to Dan’s Diner; it is reheated at the diner.”

At the diner, youth do some food prep work, assist with catering and get training on running a small food-service operation.

Community support

Coates said the New Westminster community has been instrumental in the success of Dan’s Diner.

In the past six months the diner has seen an average of 92 new visitors each month and 255 returning customers each month. In 2025, Dan’s Diner had 1,042 new visitors and 372 returning visitors.

“The community has really made a difference on how successful we have been,” she said. “We are doing incredible business out of our tiny little walk-up, take-out window.”

Coates said customer feedback shows people “love the program” because the food is affordable and delicious and because it’s making a positive environmental impact. The program uses recovered foods that would otherwise end up in the landfill.

In addition to surplus food provided by grocery stores in New Westminster, Burnaby and Vancouver, Coates said other groups, including the Plant a Row-Grow a Row program, support Dan’s Diner by providing donations of fresh produce.

The City of New Westminster has also supported the foundation by providing funding it received from Public Safety Canada’s Building Safer Communities Fund, Coates said.

“It was distributed to Dan’s Legacy for the diner because the focus is on gang diversion programs,” she said. “With our training and our counselling, we work with a lot of youth that were either trying to get out of having been recruited into gangs or we were helping them to develop what are called ‘the protective factors’ against gang recruitment, like connections to family, mental health support, strong peer connections, all these things.”

Dan’s Diner is located at #150 – 131 11th St. in New Westminster. It’s open 11:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday to Friday (closed on statutory holidays).