Need Coffee? Visit BC’s Coziest Cafés

It might still be cold outside, but it’s warm and toasty inside BC’s most welcoming cafés. So bring a page-turner or your laptop or a good friend, grab a steaming mug of joe, and settle into a cushy spot at these favourite haunts. Some are stylish and now; others are woodsy and unpretentious. But all rank tops for their inviting vibe and primo-quality coffee that’s really much too good to tote away in a to-go cup. Sit, savour, and enjoy….

Woodsy-Kitch: Owl Street Café, Hope

A former gold mining then logging town and railroad stop along the Fraser River Valley, postcard-pretty Hope is a town of 6,000 tucked into the steep Cascade Mountains, a launch pad for river rafting, hiking, and mountain biking adventures.

Ease into the slow lane if you detour to comfy Owl Street Café, a family-run operation just off the Crowsnest Highway. You’ll need time to peruse the impressively kitschy collection of all things owl—from chainsaw log-art to ceramic to shells, some 300 in all. In a peeled log A-frame housed with a B&B upstairs, Owl Street is all natural woods and windows with burly polished tree-trunk tables. Think: Homey with a capital H. Loosen your belt for the “Dutch baby” flapjacks and breakfast classics from the chalkboard menu. In summer, sit out front surrounded by lush forest and mountains.

To Order:

The cappuccino (Kelowna’s Cherry Hill Coffee) and for lunch, the Montreal smoked meat sandwich.

Minimalist Vibe: Habit Coffee, Victoria

Flower-filled Victoria is the southern Vancouver Island harbour city that draws visitors for its charming British flair and colonial architecture, teahouses, and waterside cycles; students to the leafy university campus; and power players to BC’s political capital. Foodie tours and micro brew tastings are just as popular as whale watching, sport fishing, and museum outings.

Habit Coffee’s Chinatown location near famed Fan Tan Alley is more cool than cozy, but its joe reigns, courtesy of locally roasted Bows x Arrows. Here, art adorns the exposed-brick walls and cheery staff serve killer brews with a focus on sustainability. (Habit is carbon neutral.) Sit by the floor-to-ceiling windows with a cappuccino and watch the Yates Street bustle or grab a magazine and tuck into a fresh pastry. Tip: check out the events board, chock-a-block with goings-on in the neighbourhood.

To Order:

A no-fuss cup of coffee or a decadent dark-chocolate Primo Mocha. Nibble on a vegan jam cookie.

Eclectic: The Art We Are Café, Kamloops

Cowboy country. That’s Kamloops—in BC’s sun-baked Interior, a landscape of wide-open golden grasslands, river-cut gorges, and sandstone canyons. Visitors come to angle for the big one in 100 lakes, trek through the ponderosa pines, golf, play on the water, ski at Sun Peaks, and ride the range at a dude ranch.

The Art We Are in downtown always buzzes. Locals love the funky meeting place: part “tea joint,” part gallery. Kamloops native Christina Grono gets that people want to gather at a place where everyone’s welcome, and she’s created a space as much about community as supporting local artists. The purple and brick walls of the warehouse space are jammed with artwork. Expect lots of couches and a patio filled with dozing dogs, groups of chatty teens, construction workers taking 10, and grannys reading in recliners. Linger late for open-mic live music; the place stays open until 9 p.m.

To Order:

A chai latte with homespun cornbread and from-scratch soup.

Originally published in January, 2019.