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Vancouver police insist the city streets are still safe as the city reels from an early-morning shooting that killed two people and left six injured in what is believed to be a targeted hit.

Two masked men entered the Fortune Happiness restaurant about 4:20 a.m. Thursday and unleashed numerous shots on a group of people seated at a table.

Four men and four women were caught in the gunfire, Vancouver police said. Two died at the scene. One person is in a critical condition in hospital, and five wounded people also were taken to hospital for treatment. A ninth person at the table was not wounded.

Police started receiving 911 calls just after 4:20 a.m. from the late-night Chinese restaurant at 654 Broadway East near Fraser Street.

By the time officers arrived at the scene, the gunmen had fled and officers found a “chaotic scene” at the restaurant with tables and chairs overturned, customers shot, broken glass on the ground and frantic witnesses.

“As soon as they [the assailants] entered the restaurant they started shooting,” Inspector Bob Chapman told reporters in Vancouver.

“We have nine millimetre and .45 calibre shell casings on the floor,” Insp. Chapman said.

Police say the crime has the hallmarks of a targeted hit, but would not go as far as deeming it a gang crime.

The stretch of East Broadway, with its older houses and low-rise storefronts, has resisted the gentrification taking place further west.

Vancouver Police Deputy Chief Bob Rich told a press conference that city residents should still consider themselves safe, but he said the force desperately needed more help to fend off gun crime.

“This is one of the most heinous ones [shooting crimes] we've come across,” Deputy Chief Rich said.

“This is one of the worst shootings we've had in Vancouver.”

He went on to say that gangs and guns raised “a serious problem” for the city, and the force needs more people on its gang squad to better find and seize guns.

“We seize almost a gun a day from the streets of Vancouver. That's something that really does concern us.”

Police were releasing few details of the crime on Thursday morning, but Vancouver Police spokesman Constable Howard Chow said it had the characteristics of an organized crime.

“Something like this is typically a targeted hit,” Const. Chow said from the scene.

Police-escorted tow trucks removed a mini-van, a two-door Honda, a Grand Cherokee Jeep and a four-door Toyota Camry from the restaurant just after 10 a.m., and the two deceased were removed from the restaurant about noon.

Carly Ontiveros lives near the Fortune Happiness Restaurant, and said there have been previous problems with the restaurant, which opens its doors in the late evening.

David Morrish, 40, lives across the road from the Fortune Happiness, said he heard at least 10 shots, some of which sounded like they came from a shotgun.

“The first few shots woke me up ... I knew exactly what it was,” Mr. Morrish said of the gunfire.

Mr. Morrish said he had only recently noticed a sign in the restaurant window saying that security cameras had been installed.

Shamis Ali, the owner of neighbouring restaurant The Mogadishu Cafe, said the street outside the Fortune Happiness usually starts to fill up with “nice cars and nicely dressed people” after 11 p.m.

“I feel something is always going on there, because at night it was really busy,” Ms. Ali said.