“Unveil began as a question: What would it actually mean to be sustainable as a coffee roaster?”
That is how Spencer Dunnison describes the start of Unveil Coffee Roasters, which takes over the old Lumiere Cafe unit on West Broadway this September.
I have read a lot of coffee shop mission statements.
Most are a colour palette with a paragraph attached.
But this one comes with receipts and is clearly more serious about it.
“When entering the specialty coffee industry I was horrified by the amount of waste,” Spencer told Noms Magazine.
Even in cafes trying to do the right thing, he found that the majority of “compostable” packaging is not truly compostable, and that much of the industry’s plastic cannot be recycled at all.
That is a real claim from someone qualified to make it.
The other half of the problem was the wages.
“Many baristas could not afford rent and had started to turn to food banks for their groceries,” he says of friends in the industry.
“These are friends who were part of the competition scene and career professionals.”
So Unveil is pushing 3 things: living wages, no tipping, and no single-use cups.
You bring your own, or you use the thin clay cups the shop is getting from GaeaStar.
The name is a mission statement too: unveiling the behind-the-scenes of specialty coffee, from producer pay to what compostable packaging actually is.
Now, every few months, somebody announces a no-tipping model.
However, what makes me think this one holds is Spencer’s resume.
Spencer is Vancouver born and raised, with a degree in neuroscience and opera, culinary school in New York, and Michelin-starred kitchens before coffee took over.
He’s got eight years in the specialty coffee scene, running espresso bars, training baristas, consulting, and roasting for other companies.
He is also a fixture of the Canadian coffee competition scene, with multiple top-10 national finishes including third place at the 2025 Canadian Coffee In Good Spirits Championship.
Unveil first soft launched as a roastery on Salt Spring Island last year; the Greektown room will be its first brick-and-mortar.
The food program has its own headline hire.
Elcy Espiritu, known around the city for her Kaya Pastry pop-ups and a longtime specialty coffee industry veteran herself, joins as head pastry chef and cafe manager, with recipes in testing and heritage-inspired baking planned.
The menu will stay focused: espresso drinks and pourovers done carefully, plus one fun signature coffee drink in development for launch.
The buildout leans reuse-first: whatever can be preserved from the previous tenant stays, most tables come from ChopValue’s recycled-chopstick program, and SAKSUN Studio and AD Projects are shaping the room.
A Kickstarter is running to cover kitchen build-out.
The part I like most is the least measurable.
“Whether you are in the industry and looking to geek out about coffee or are a member of the neighbourhood trying a pourover for the first time, we want you to feel equally welcomed,” Spencer says.
Their line for the whole thing is care for every hand, coffee for people and planet.
Greektown earns the pick and is a natural fit as Spencer grew up in Kitsilano.
Unveil joins other upcoming Vancouver food spots like Crepe Spot, Nami Main, and Como Ultramar.
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Address: 2815 West Broadway, Vancouver BC