The little coffee shack beside the CBC that a lot of downtown workers missed when it closed is about to get a second life.
Honest to Pete Coffee Roasters is taking over the former JJ Bean shack at 740 Hamilton Street in Downtown Vancouver.
If you worked downtown, you know the spot.
The cottage-style JJ Bean shack sat beside the CBC building for about 15 years, opening as a temporary pop-up during the 2010 Winter Olympics before becoming a daily fixture for CBC staff and nearby office workers.
It closed in November 2024, with JJ Bean pointing to shifting downtown foot traffic and remote work as the reasons it no longer made sense.
The wooden shack has sat quiet since then, which is what makes the new tenant interesting.
Honest to Pete is a Vancouver coffee roaster, not a big chain.
The company was started by a coffee obsessive named Peter, who turned a home-roasting hobby into a small-batch roastery now tucked away at 2109 Alberta Street in Mount Pleasant.
It is an easy spot to miss, but the people who know it are loyal, with a 4.9 star rating and regulars who vouch for the friendly staff and cozy room as much as the coffee itself.
The roastery sits inside a quirky, artistic building full of creative rooms, and the unofficial greeter is a black cat who tends to say hello when you walk in.
They roast fresh every day, in small batches in the late morning, so the beans barely sit before they reach you.
Their flagship is a blend called Retrospresso, which the roaster describes as bold and complex with notes of milk chocolate, caramel, macadamia, and cherry.
The team first teased the move in late May, posting a photo in front of the shack with a watch this space sign and a caption about working on something new downtown.
Since then they have shared updates about cleaning, painting, and getting the little building ready.
There is no firm opening date yet, but the signs point to sometime this summer.
It is also a quietly hopeful story for a stretch of downtown that has lost more coffee spots than it has gained lately.
A shuttered shack that a lot of people had written off is getting a local roaster who actually wants to be there.
Honest to Pete Downtown now joins other upcoming Vancouver food spots like Doe Coffee Main, SUMU, and Angus T Waterfront.
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Address: 740 Hamilton Street, Vancouver, BC