“We know we’re a little crazy,” say the two sisters, 17 and 23, who are betting everything on a coffee shop in one of the busiest, most expensive neighbourhoods in Vancouver.
That shop is Unscripted Coffee, opening soon in the former BrainStation space on Granville Street, steps from the Waterfront Station Canada Line entrance.
Behind it are Angel Dee, 17, a fresh high school graduate, and her sister Sara Dee, 23, who finished an Accounting and Real Estate degree at UBC last spring.
Neither has run a food business before, and they are not hiding it.
They have been documenting the whole beginner journey, the permits, the plumbing, the latte-art practice, on Instagram as @unscripted.coffeeshop.
The name is the thesis.
They told Noms Magazine that they chose “Unscripted,” because it represents “two young sisters who don’t know what they’re doing and are not afraid to show it.”
Sara, who grew up selling everything from Filipino dried mango to sneakers, says this one is different.
“It’s not a side hustle, nor an experiment,” she says. “It’s something I’d actually have to show up for every day and fight for.”
The location is a gamble on purpose.
Their pitch is that the financial district is “exactly where people need it most,” a place to slow down between office towers.
They have spent so much time on the buildout that they once stayed the whole night and slept over inside the space.
They inherited a space with 23-foot ceilings and a clean, corporate feel, then brought in more than 15 volunteers for a painting party to warm it up.
The 750-square-foot cafe seats 20 to 30 people and splits into two moods.
To the left is a pink and green nook with a community market shelf for local small businesses.
To the right is the Bean Corner, a low table ringed with bean bags meant to feel like a games night at home.
An adjoining event hall of about 1,100 square feet can hold up to 100 people, and the sisters want to fill it with live music nights, screenings, and art workshops.
The coffee program is not an afterthought.
Pallet Coffee Roasters supplies the mainstay espresso, a natural single-origin from Brazil called Serra Negra, with Alai Coffee’s Indian-origin beans as the first feature on a rotating roaster program.
The house-made side leans into the sisters’ Chinese, Thai, Filipino, and Jewish background.
There is a sweet corn cold foam they say they have not seen anywhere else, plus slushies in Thai tea, calamansi, and Filipino mango.
The menu is still being finalized, partly on purpose, shaped by social media polls, suggestion boxes, and soft-opening feedback.
The opening date is the one thing they cannot pin down.
Their original goal was to open in 30 days, a deliberately “impossible” challenge that started the day after Angel’s graduation.
Summer holidays and slow permitting blew past that mark, so the sisters are now aiming for late July, depending on how the permits land.
Unscripted Coffee joins a run of upcoming Vancouver openings to watch, including % Arabica at Oakridge Park, Straight Outta Brooklyn on Kingsway, and Chef Hyve on Commercial Drive.
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: 455 Granville Street, Vancouver BC