Big news on the Formosa front: the couple that runs the venerable University Ave. restaurant in Charlottetown has purchased the former Big Mommas location on Prince Street, all 3000 square feet of it, and plans to either move there entirely, or keep the existing location open and open a new branch there. The menu will be expanded on Prince St., and they plan to open one floor to start, with others to follow. Expect an opening date of next spring.

Let’s hope they can break through the curse on that building: it’s been so many restaurants, from so many owners, over the time we’ve been on the Island that we’ve stopped counting (and, a couple of owners ago, stopped going, just because we expected the worst). Apparently this isn’t a new curse, either: I talked to someone today who’s got 15 years on me, and he said the same has been true all his life as well.

If anyone can make that location work, it will be the tenacious couple at the Formosa. Here’s hoping they make a good go of it; I know that our family will be regular and enthusiastic customers there, especially as they’ll be only 2 blocks from our house.

Amazing, isn’t it, the explosion and success of interesting food in Charlottetown in the past year. I remember reading a fantastic column by Len Russo in the Eastern Graphic several years back: he was writing about the arrival of the Just Juicin’ juice bar to Queen St., and compared it to the arrival of pizza on the Island in the early 1970s in importance and earth-shakingness. I think we’re into another quake now.

I really miss Len’s column in the Graphic; he’s a fantastic writer, one of the best columnists I’ve ever read regularly. Our loss in Canadian Tire’s gain.