When Sophie Dikeakos and her family bought a cafeteria on West 4th Avenue nearly two decades ago, they took down the old sign for the Arbutus Restaurant and struck a gold vein of nostalgia: a sign for the Cosmic Circus, an artifact of Kitsilano's notorious hippie era.

 

    The Cosmic Circus was once a head shop, which only people over 30 -- well, now over 50 -- can be trusted to recognize as slang for a store selling drug stuff: hash pipes, bongs, rolling paper for marijuana joints. Ms. Dikeakos, who moved to the neighbourhood of Kitsilano in 1968 during its hippie heyday, recognized the sign and instantly renamed the restaurant Sophie's Cosmic Cafe.

 

    Since then Sophie's Cosmic Cafe -- and its jocose owner, now a silver-haired 60-year-old -- have become institutions, the restaurant a historic anchor to Kitsilano the way the Empress Hotel is to Victoria or Hon's restaurant is to Vancouver's Chinatown. While Kitsilano's hippie era has long vanished, the first thing Sophie's customers see is a sign by the entrance: "Hippies use side door."

 

    Sophie's is an anachronism in Kitsilano, where the neighbourhood character has evolved from cosmic to condo, the funky and often shabby shops that once lined West 4th are now interspersed with businesses featuring engineered design and sophisticated marketing. Like businesses in any of Vancouver's distinct neighbourhoods, shops on West 4th are part of the churn of Vancouver's pre-Olympic economy, affected most by the recent red-hot real estate market and rent increases. Some landmarks have simply closed shop while others, like the old shoe repair shop near Sophie's on West 4th, moved. "It's more generic [now]," Ms. Dikeakos says. "It's losing the charm it had . . . as being part of the hippie era, of making love not war."

 

    Says Peter Burch, a planner with the City of Vancouver: "Restaurants like Sophie's, those institutions, are a kind of anchor to a neighbourhood. . . . when you see those kinds of neighbourhood institutions depart, it leaves a hole."

 

    Restaurants in Vancouver change as quickly as the weather but, like the vegetarian Naam that is Kitsilano's other landmark eatery, Sophie's remains popular. On weekends, long lineups snake down the sidewalk outside and on weekdays there's almost always a cluster of people waiting to be seated.

 

    Perhaps people come for the interior's 3D peculiarity, a cross between a 1960s rumpus room and a junk shop. The walls and ceiling are plastered with children's push cars, photos, deer antlers, plaster animal heads, antique merry-go-round horses, figurines and stuffed dolls, movie memorabilia, Sixties album covers and a poster of the Mona Lisa, with plastic fried eggs glued over both eyes.

 

    Booths with squashy bench seats covered in red vinyl and Formica-topped tables are divided by a pop-bottle fence. "Some restaurants are turnkey operations," already decorated and with a set menu, Ms. Dikeakos says. "For me, this is an emotional thing . . . This is my neighbourhood."

 

    The items have stories, like a photo of a showgirl signed "Bonnie" inscribed, "For Buck: my rootin, tootin' cowboy." Buck, Ms. Dikeakos explains sadly, was a friend, and Bonnie his tap-dance teacher. After Buck died in 1995 of AIDS, Ms. Dikeakos fixed Buck's high-heeled tap-dance shoes on a shelf above the photograph.

 

    Half of Sophie's patrons are regulars who know the stories, and for the rest, Ms. Dikeakos plays tour guide, pouring endless coffee refills into thick, white porcelain cups. A favourite tale concerns the framed cast from a lawyer friend's broken limb, on which the late B.C. artist, Bill Reid, drew pictures. "I love stuff, and I love collecting," she shrugs.

 

    During the past year, however, Ms. Dikeakos has begun to separate her iconic presence from the restaurant. She had a heart attack a year ago, and although she's still at Sophie's several days a week, she no longer thinks about it 24/7. Instead, she says, she's learning to play the piano at her home a few blocks away, and remembering to breathe. "Now, I tell myself it's okay if someone else does it."

 

    Of the diverse cornucopia of Vancouver's restaurant scene, Mr. Burch, the city planner, says: "Restaurants where there hasn't been a changeover provide both comfort food and a comfort associated with going to a restaurant for a long period of time."