A new concept for coffee lovers is coming to Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant neighbourhood this winter. Novella Coffee Bar is a one-stop shop for great coffee, food, and groceries with a twist.
From the team behind the contemporary and upscale Michelin one-star Published on Main and the Michelin-recommended Bar Susu, comes Novella Coffee Bar, a new and unique approach to your morning routine.
We got the chance to speak with co-owner Cody Allmin about the project and you’ll see that it’s much more than just bacon and eggs.
So why don’t you take us right to the beginning and tell us about the origins of Novella.
Cody: Novella is a project that we started talking about when we originally opened up Published, and it was something we conceptualized originally about having this daytime program inside of Published and we saw an opening in the area for a great daytime spot.
We’d always thought about doing this cool coffee daytime program at Published… then Published blew up.
Within about two months of opening, we launched a brunch program and we ended up having to kill it after Covid, just because we were too busy trying to keep up with our evening program. We didn’t really have the time to execute what we had always conceptualized of what Novella would be at Published.
It was always kind of in the back of our heads obviously, kind of lived back there for a while during Covid.
But as soon as we came out of it, we started looking for a venue and I had walked past this place a few times and decided to call a realtor one day and came in to check it out and just fell in love with the room and the layout.
Can you tell me more about the vision for Novella?
Cody: Everywhere we’ve opened doors so far, it’s always about doing something unique and what we’re trying to do at Novella is bring a new approach to the coffee community on Main Street.
There’s a lot of coffee shops, but there’s nowhere serving anything that’s very much focused on the culture of new wave coffee.
We’re offering a coffee program that’s probably not going to be appealing to the masses but it’s never really what we’ve intended on doing. We want to appeal to the people that want something different.
We’re working with the guys at House of Funk on the coffee program who are very much at the forefront of innovation in the coffee scene in Vancouver, so they’re a natural partner for us.
We’re gonna be brewing coffee that I think a lot of people are going to possibly be taken back by at first. It’s not going to be your classic dark roast, you know, we’re the counterculture to Starbucks, if you will.
And the food program is really great, we’re definitely a food focused brand at our company and we made sure that is a part of what we’re doing here. The chefs we’ve brought on to do the program are definitely going to be doing some stuff that’s not your typical cafe food.
A lot of stuff made in house with a great bread program and a great baked program, so again, just trying to do something that other people aren’t.
Tell me about the Mount Pleasant area and what drew you here?
Cody: I mean it’s my home, that’s one of the biggest things.
I live here.
I know the community well, I know the people that live here, my friends live here and it’s become the part of Vancouver that I most like being in. It’s the community we love.
A lot of the concepts that we’re opening up, I know for a fact wouldn’t work in most places in Vancouver, but Main Street has got everything we need to thrive here and I hope that we’re a part of driving that as well.
What are you hoping people leave with when they come in for the first time?
Cody: One of the things we love to focus on with our programs is telling stories.
We’re serving stuff that’s different and it might not be familiar to people so we want to make sure they’re leaving having learned something. It’s not that you don’t like this, it’s that you don’t like it yet and that’s kind of the approach we always take to it.
We want to create a space where you can step out of your comfort zone and try something new and create a new experience that you get to go and tell your friends about.
The hope is that we can get people in here that haven’t tried this style of coffee and are excited about it and then come back with their friends. That’s when we know we’ve succeeded is when they’re excited to come in and we’re not telling their friends… they’re telling their friends.
We hope that our passion for this stuff translates to the consumer as well
Novella Coffee Bar will be located at 2650 Main Street in Vancouver. The scheduled opening date is December 8th. The space will also feature a small grocery area where guests can purchase house-made bread, coffee and food.
An evening program is also in the works for Novella and that is set to launch in the new year.
Address: 2650 Main Street, Vancouver BC
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This piece was made possible thanks to Ryan Bailey