Big 7 Motel and ABC Family Restaurant

December 3, 2025

In the 1970s and 80s, at the edge of Harewood on Nicol Street, sat "Nanaimo's first economy motel": The Big 7 Motel and ABC Family Restaurant.

I found this postcard on ebay (pictured above) of the old motel and restaurant, before they eventually became the Value Lodge Motel and Alice's Restaurant.

If you look closely (click the photo to zoom in), you can see the Big 7 logo in the centre and the ABC logo on the right-hand side.

The back of the postcard says the Big 7 was a Family Restaurant, owned by Norm and Dorothy Eusanio, and makes the claim that it was "Nanaimo's first economy motel" with 58 units. It also says the motel was a "Member of Economy Inns Inc."

This was before the ABC Family Restaurant moved down the street to the Days Inn, where it was for years before becoming a Ricky's (old sign pictured below).

This was also before the ABC was rebranded from a "Family" to a "Country Restaurant."

I also found this matchbook on ebay showing the old ABC logo.

Interestingly, there's another matchbook on ebay for the legendary Alice's Restaurant, that moved into the Big 7 Motel when ABC left. The matchbook confirms Alices was there before the motel changed names.

Not much info exists online about the Big 7 Motel, or if it was part of a chain of similarly-named motels.

I did find a reference to another Big 7 Motel in Smithers, BC in a 1987 edition of the Fraser Valley Milk Break dairy newsletter, and there are a few motels called Big 7 in the US, but it's not clear if they're related.