bCbusinEss.Ca OCtObER 2018 BCBusiness 35
e n T r e P r e n e u r o F T H e Y e A r 2 0 1 8 / T O U R I S M + H O S P I T A L I T Y
Being an entrepreneur is
the only kind of work Daniel
Frankel has ever known. The
founder and
CEO of Vancouver-
area Tap & Barrel Restaurants
tried a few times to land
traditional employment, but
he couldn't. "I applied at a
bunch of places," Frankel
says. "I never managed to get a
regular job."
Frankel, who grew up
in Vancouver, earned a ƒlm
degree from the University of
Western Ontario in 1996 and
started a small commercial
production company shortly
afterward. Film wasn't a par-
ticularly lucrative line of work,
so he bought a co‰ee shop in
Vancouver's Coal Harbour
in 2001. He grew that into
eclectic portfolio of restau-
rants, pubs and gift shops in
Vancouver and Victoria.
Tap & Barrel is much more
than just the latest in a line of
more than a dozen businesses
that Frankel has built over his
career, though. He opened
the ƒrst location in Vancou-
ver's Olympic Village in 2012,
designing it to encapsulate the
vision and values he'd been
forming over a decade. There
was no unifying link or pur-
pose to his previous restau-
rant collection. When Frankel
secured the prime waterfront
spot that would become Tap &
Barrel, he felt he couldn't start
another restaurant if it wasn't
something more meaning-
ful. "I almost walked away
from it," he says. "I realized,
if I can't do it right, what am I
doing here?"
Doing it right for Frankel
meant creating a restaurant
that developed leaders from
among its sta‰, acted as a good
steward of the environment,
supported the community and
was a place where people could
connect. The beers and wines
all come from B.C. producers,
as do the food ingredients
whenever possible. Frankel
wanted to create a consistent
culture committed to its core
beliefs, so he began selling and
divesting from all his other
restaurants and bars.
Today, Tap & Barrel oper-
ates three large-format restau-
rants along the Vancouver and
North Vancouver waterfronts,
two smaller
TAPshacks, and a
combined microbrewery and
beer hall in the historic Opsal
Steel building in Olympic
Village. Frankel's company
employs about 1,200 people
and supports dozens of local
suppliers. —D.H.
W I N N E R
Daniel Frankel
F O u N D E R a N D
C E O , T a p & B a R R E L
R E S T a u R a N T S
What other
career might
you have had?
When I was a kid, I always
wanted to be an architect.
My grandfather escaped
the Holocaust, but he
studied at the Bauhaus,
the famous and influential
German art and design
school, before Hitler
shut it down
