A chartered accountant bought a Whistler grocery store in 2019 and turned it into a coffee shop weeks before the lockdowns started.
Forecast Coffee has opened at 201-288 Esplanade E in North Vancouver, and the door is off the lane rather than the street.
It is worth finding, because this one is not a regular outpost.
The Esplanade shop is the company’s headquarters, running a cafe, a roastery and a test kitchen out of the same room.
“We will dial in new roasts, bake our cookies and pastries, dream up new menu items and bring ideas to life before they make their way across all of our locations,” the team wrote when they opened the doors on August 19.
It is now open every day from 8am to 3pm, which is a shorter day than any of their other shops keep.
That is the tell.
The room closes early because the afternoon belongs to the roaster and the kitchen.
Forecast started in Whistler’s Function Junction in February 2020, when Jim Salusbury, a chartered accountant who had left the Vancouver firm he founded, took over a grocery and deli called Olives and turned it into a coffee shop.
Weeks later the lockdowns hit.
Six years on, the company runs seven addresses across the province, from Function Junction and the Village to Main Street, East Hastings and Caulfeild Village in West Vancouver.
North Vancouver is the first on this side of the water, and it is where everything the others sell now gets built.
The kitchen is not an afterthought either.
The board runs breakfast wraps, bacon and mushroom-patty sandos on brioche, a forager bowl with tater tots and poached eggs, mushroom toast on sourdough, and overnight oats.
Lunch adds a fried chicken sando, a hot honey BLT with onion jam, a mortadella sandwich with pistachio gremolata, a black bean burrito, and a classic poutine flagged as the feature.
The coffee is certified organic, ethically sourced, and roasted weekly, and the company holds B Corp certification.
“This is Forecast. We’re just getting started,” the team wrote.
Forecast Coffee North Vancouver joins other recently opened Metro Vancouver spots including Teabydo Richmond, French Creek Pub in Downtown, and Dimsum Caddy Richmond.
For more new and upcoming food spots in Metro Vancouver, take a peek at our tracker here, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.
Address: 201-288 Esplanade E, North Vancouver, BC
Google decides which local food news you see. Tell it you want Noms
One tap adds Noms Magazine as a preferred source. No signup, no email.