Problogue

Right... on another rainy day in Vancouver, I was motivated to start this coffee tour while sitting in JJ Bean, one of the more popular cafes on my street... main st. I was planning to work at JJ Bean for the next two weeks with daily 5-6 hour shifts of video editing... but as "Christina Aguilera's Genie in a Bottle" played overhead at the mid-point of day 1, I eventually decided that it was time to search for a better cafe. There is a little prologue to this story, and it goes a little something like…

About 2 months ago when I first moved to the Mt Pleasant hood, I was having a few pints with some friends, and Greg tells me that I’m lucky to be moving to Main because JJ Bean, on 14th and Main, has the “best” coffee in the world. I don’t think much of it as I can barely tell the difference between a coffee from Starbucks and 7-11. But anything that's the BEST in the WORLD deserves a go. So I finally hit up JJ BEAN to order Greg’s "best coffee in the world" - Americano (whatever that is)... and like a Glenlivet on the rocks, I do notice a difference right away. It really is the best coffee I have ever had. I ask a cute brunette coffee girl about it, and she explains that she is roasting the beans right there in the shop. That means that the beans are much more fresh than any place like Tim’s or Starbucks, hence the great coffee.

Perfect. It’s big, lots of space. Every table on the wall has it’s own electrical outlet so I can plug in. A lot of cool people come in and the staff seems to talk to people all friendly like. Plus they have lots of selection of food, snacks and cookies (ginger snaps... SNAP!). So I’m pretty sure this is going to be my office for the next couple of weeks. Wrong. And it wasn’t the crumbly croissant that upset me. I could easily change to just cookies. But the big reason that inspired me to begin my new search was the MUSIC. I wouldn’t have even minded no music at all, but I was horrified to realize that the music they were playing here was all wrong. They play 80s and 90s top 40 satellite music that the staff has no control over.

After two hours, a nice coffee and then smooth Chai to calm my nerves, the music had become as annoying as two white beagles locked in a Volvo. I became obsessed with what would be the next gay song. Obviously with top 40, there were some decent songs coming up, but there was a consistency of puke that just couldn’t sit in my stomach any longer…

At first, “Turn the beat around” made me smirk. Mariah Carey “Dreamlover” and some Enrique crap made me worry a bit. But when I heard 2 unlimited “are you Ready” and Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby”, it hit me like a blind date with Lisa Kudrow that this could never be “my café”, and I would have to start a new search. So I thought about it and there were like 10 other cafes in between my house and JJ Bean anyways. Let's take a look at what makes a good cafe...

Friday, October 26, 2007

III – Waves


Another sunny day… 2 in a row! Whoa Vancouver! Maybe this talk about a warm winter in true.

So with the sun I fly down to Waves on my longboard… HeHeHe. But definitely not a surfer café. The place is sleek! Black leather and granite tabletops with a 50” plasma displaying CNN news over a fireplace, I felt like I was in yaletown needing to check if the Dow was up or down.

I ordered a large Americano since they didn’t have anything special to their name. I have to say that now that I know what good coffee tastes like, this wasn’t anything special. It was good, but maybe like a Starbucks bitter taste that didn’t have much flavor. It was a big cup, much larger than JJs so that won some points as sometimes I like quantity over quality especially on coffee as I don’t really care too much about the taste as long as it doesn’t stink.

I was excited about the music. They were playing hip hop for the first couple of hours. Good stuff too… but a weird thing happened and it changed to some weird elevator music and then to C-isle 650 oldies... by night I requested a change again and they put on some electronic stuff. Oh well… it started out really well but then disappointment, as I realized the staff had nothing to do with the playlist, they just change the satellite channel. NOT GOOD! If the staff is about the music, people will converse with them... maybe even spread some decent music culture around... get with it all of you trendy cafes.

The place was so busy that I felt like a fly on the wall. Which was good. I got a lot of work done, and so did everyone else. Window bar was full of labtops and I got to meet another video editor sitting next to me. He was a SFU film graduate working on a wedding. Jeesh, people need SFU Film Graduates to make their wedding video exciting… get a life! (That was a joke in case you don’t know what my main source of income is).

But anyways, check out this pic. They designed the whole wall for labtops to be able to plug in… and FREE wireless internet with no password (sweet).

I ordered a HEALTHY flax seed salmon roll which were very unique but kind of smelly and I dared not talk to any of the beautiful girls that were coming in off the street from shopping at all the cool clothing stores on the block. They were kind of annoying anyways. Also annoying was a bum that walked in off the streets to ask everyone for change and another sketchy dude that was randomly loud… I guess I can’t complain, since it is main street.

After a very productive 8 hour work shift, I decided to explore the place. The girl I had asked about the music gave me a nice smile so I asked her if there was anything yummy. She said the chicken pesto sandwich so I ordered again. The bread was a bit stale… oops. But the place is really nice, clean and stylish. I would definitely come back for a coffee date, and possibly another productive work day once every so often.


At the end of the day

My bill

Large Americano 3.23
Salmon Roll with Limonata 6.48
Chicken Pesto Sandwich 6.35

Rating

Coffee C+
Service B
Atmosphere B
Music C+
free internet +1 bonus point
Open 24/7 +2 bonus points
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