Pigeon Hole welcomes you to their establishment. You can also enjoy the sunlight on their terrace. They are open late from Monday to Saturday and are accessible by bicycle and public transit. Come visit them in a neighborhood acknowledged as lively. Payments by American Express, MasterCard and Visa are recognized.more...See more text
Following the success of his restaurant Model Milk, chef Justin Leboe noticed Calgarians had taken a particular liking to the concept of share plate dining. So he decided to open up a second venture named Pigeonhole to specialize in just that. “Part of the concept came about through Model Milk. The servers would indicate to the chef if people were sharing a dish. And it just became more and more – you started seeing all this sharing amongst people,” explains Pigeonhole general manager Heather Wighton. “People don’t always want to be stuck with just eating their one appetizer and one entrée – they want to try them all.”
In May 2015, Justin opened Pigeonhole as Model Milk’s neighbouring sister restaurant and wine bar. And in November 2016, he brought chef Douglas King (formerly of Kissa Tanto in Vancouver) on board as the restaurant’s Chef de Cuisine. The menu features a range of experimental dishes, made with seasonal, regionally sourced ingredients and culinary influence from all across the globe. “The idea behind Pigeonhole was that we knew we wanted a sharing, appetizer-sized plates concept, and we didn’t want to pigeonhole ourselves to one type of cuisine,” Heather says.
A seasoned restauranteur with a passion for the business side of the industry, Heather started working in restaurants after graduating from university with a degree in anthropology and sociology. “I just really fell in love with the business side of a restaurant because it is so different than any other industry,” she says. After working at the now closed Home Tasting Room as well as Rouge in Inglewood, she went on to purchase Muse in Kensington as her own restaurant when she was only 27 years old. She eventually sold her shares and the restaurant became Modern Steak. After a short stint as manager at the now shuttered Il Sogno restaurant in Bridgeland, Heather was approached by Justin to come on board as Pigeonhole’s general manager. “I like opening restaurants. You kind of get to mould it and you get to pick the people you work with,” she says. “We have an amazing team here and a lot of them have been here since we've opened."
