Flourist Opens in East Vancouver

Flourist Opens in East Vancouver

A few months back, Flourist (formerly Grain according to this VIA article) announced they were opening a brick and mortar coffee shop/flour mill. I’d bet money that we don’t have that combination anywhere closeby.

A couple of weeks ago they opened their doors go the public and let me tell you, it’s a feast for the eyes.

Flourist Opens in East Vancouver

Tell me about what my eyes can eat, VCS

OK first off, that’s a really weird way of putting it.

Second,  you really need to see this in person, as my terrible photography will not do it justice, but here goes.

Flourist Opens in East Vancouver

The whole place is a calming sea of neutral wood colours. According to their designer, Craig Stranghetta, they wanted the space to “feel like standing in a wheatfield on a perfect sunny day”.

The venue is huge, at 2800 sqft. There are 48 seats in the place, with loads of room intentionally left for strollers.

That’s right, the polarizing subject of kids has come up.

Flourist Opens in East Vancouver

I spoke to Janna Bishop, the CEO of Flourist who said that the intentional design is because their key demographic is young families. “These are the people that have been buying our flours and grains for the last few years”, she said.

I’m the first person to say “urgh, strollers” but I actually really like how they’ve designed the place. The spaces between tables are huge, there is an area in the back specifically reserved for “stroller parking” and the booths are set up for squirmy rugrats to have plenty of room to put their sticky digits everywhere.

Shut up about toddlers and tell me about the coffee at Flourist

Flourist have opted for 49th Parallel as their roaster of choice. They’re using the Old School Espresso blend for their espresso.

For milk, they have regular old cow juice, as well as a selection of nut and grain milks.

Flourist Opens in East Vancouver

Filter coffee is not available at the time of writing but should be on the bar in a week or two, as they get their equipment ready.

All of their espresso drinks are served from a new, shiny La Marzocco Linea PB.

Latte and cookies at Flourist

OK, good so far, now tell me about what I can put in my pie hole

As you might have guessed, there’s a wide selection of breads available. In fact, you can also buy the flour they use to make the breads, freshly milled on their shelves.

Loaf of bread at Flourist

More on the milling later though.

There are several “on toast” dishes, such as beans on toast, cheese on toast, cinnamon sugar on toast, hummus on toast and, bizarrely, yogurt on toast (pressed yogurt, which I’m assuming isn’t the Yoplait kind!).

Beans on toast

Cheesy toast

There’s also a selection of sweet treats available. I tried 3-4 of them and they’re all incredible.

Cookie

The brownie slab gave me the chocolate face sweats after about two bites!

Brownie

Tell me about that mill though

Sorry about the crappy photo, but Flourist has rudely decided to put glass in between me and the mill.

Flour mill at Flourist

How inconsiderate. It’s almost like they don’t want a thin layer of powder over absolutely everything and everyone, forever.

But seriously though, this is the first time I’ve ever actually seen a flour mill. It makes for an amazing centrepiece in the cafe.

Flour mill

Where is Flourist?

Location: 3433 Commercial Street
Hours: 7am-6pm Mon-Sun
Website: www.flourist.com
Instagram: @flourist

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