Three days after opening day, business at Kelowna's new Poké place is anything but pokey. The popularity of this Hawaiian born food-style has grown wildly over the past decade, and the owners of Pacific Poké are pleased with how this community is responding to it.
A lot of people who come to try poké are sushi lovers and owner Raj Khare says the response is often the same. "As soon as they try it," he said, "they're like 'this is just a better way of eating sushi.'" Khare said their customers are from all the different demographics. "We have kids, adults, elderly, families."
Poké literally means diced raw fish. It's served atop rice or quinoa combined with a long list of accompaniments including Japanese avocado, roasted seaweed, jicama, beets and basil, specialty soy and other house-made sauces. Khare says there's something for everyone. "You can keep it spicy or less spicy, you have all these different flavours."
It was in 2016 that Khare's group opened a restaurant in Vancouver, and it's grown to nine stores in two and a half years. Interest in Kelowna is just an extension of that. "Day one, we opened the doors on Saturday," said Khare, "line-up out the door. Everyone's been waiting for the last year for this place to open so it's still going."
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