C Market Coffee founder talks new 5,000-square-foot café location and planned growth.
A new Vancouver coffee shop that draws its inspiration from South Korea’s booming coffee culture is being billed as the city’s largest. C Market Coffee’s latest outpost at 195 E 36th Ave. boasts more than 5,000 sq. ft. of space for visitors to sip steaming brews and dig into pastries, such as Dubai Chewy Cookies and strawberry-and-whipped-cream croissants.
“While there are larger mixed-use venues that serve coffee, as a purpose-built café focused on coffee, dining and the seating experience, this is among the largest — and very likely the largest — in Vancouver,” says founder and CEO Bridgette Hyun.
The new café, which took over a ground-floor commercial space originally intended to be split in two, features a modern interior with standalone tables, long communal solo seating options, and concrete installations that can double as standing sip-and-conversation spots. It’s a café designed to have a seat open when you arrive. “Hospitality, to us, means creating room, physically and emotionally, for people to connect,” Hyun says.
At a time when many eateries have introduced rules around the length of stay (a standard of two hours is fairly consistent), Hyun says the larger-format coffee shop design is intended to inspire people to linger.
“We believe cafés can function as social infrastructure — places where ideas are exchanged, relationships form, and community strengthens,” she says. “Rather than focusing solely on quick turnover, we focused on customer comfort, seating variety, and spatial flow to support both to-go visits and extended gatherings.”
The new Main Street location represents growth for the local company, which already operates three other cafés in Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam and Pitt Meadows, not only in terms of size but also in ambition.
Courtesy of Vancouver Sun