A cafe chain’s longtime location has shut down after 11 years.
Caffè Artigiano has closed its cafe at 4010 Main Street in Mount Pleasant, and we spotted the closure notice on its doors.
The printed page is addressed to “our Main Street community” and signed “With gratitude, The Artigiano Team.”
“We have some news to share: our Main Street location will be closing its doors this week,” it reads.
No reason is given anywhere on the page, but if we had to guess, lease was likely the reason.
Below the message, a QR code sits under the line “find your nearest cafe” and points to the chain’s website.
The cafe opened on this corner in 2015, which makes 11 years on Main Street.
The chain’s own locations page now lists eight cafes in Vancouver proper, from the original Hornby Street shop to Kerrisdale, Cambie Street and the Roundhouse cafe bar on Davie.
Across BC it lists 18, plus one in Calgary, and Main Street has already been removed from the page.
This is not a chain in retreat.
Artigiano opened a new cafe at Brentwood Town Centre Station in August, and is still in the midst of expanding with more locations.
The company started on Hornby Street more than 25 years ago, when brothers Vince and Sammy Piccolo opened the first Caffè Artigiano cafes downtown in the late 1990s.
Artigiano describes itself as “a pioneer of Canada’s coffee culture” that brought latte art to Vancouver, and it still roasts its own beans in Burnaby.
The Piccolos later sold the chain, and the website now lists Dean Shillington as owner and CEO.
The Main Street corner it leaves behind has been filling up, not emptying out.
The new six-storey rental building at Main and East 24th brought Ramen Danbo in July, along with Jo’s Italian Deli, and TurF, the Kitsilano fitness studio and cafe hybrid, opened there on September 2.
TurF pours Moja coffee from a pink tile counter, so the block did not lose its only espresso machine.
It did lose the one that had been there longest.
Caffè Artigiano Main Street joins the list of recently closed or closing food spots in Vancouver like Their There in Kitsilano, Sushi Aboard on Denman Street, and COFU on Granville Island.
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Address: 4010 Main Street, Vancouver, BC V5V 0C4
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