— Matchstick Blog

Yup, we’re open!  Back on Friday, January 20th we had the pleasure of opening our doors to the public for the first time. It’s been an absolutely incredible two weeks and we couldn’t feel more blessed by the reception we’ve received from all you coffee geeks, cookie fiends and residents of the Fraserhood.  We just wanted to take a minute to say thank you to everyone that’s supported us so far.

To our family and friends who have been there along the way: you are incredible.  We couldn’t have done this without you.  And thank you for continuing to support us now that we’re open.

And to all of our new friends in the Fraser & Kingsway neighbourhood, it has been a blast meeting you all.  We feel very honoured to be part of this community.

This is only the beginning and we’re very excited to see what’s next for Matchstick. Thank you all for sharing these amazing first weeks with us.

ps. for those of you that missed them, there are a couple of great blog posts out there with some fantastic photos of the shop.

From Scout Magazine: Seen in Vancouver #338: Cool “Matchstick” Getting Its New Grind On In The Fraserhood

And from cleanhotdry.com: Matchstick Coffee Roasters

*One more thing:

If you’re not already aware, we’re on Twitter and on Facebook.  This is where we try to add a lot of content on a more regular basis.  So if you’re just needing that little bit of extra ‘Matchstick’ fun, be sure to check those out.

Things in the cafe have been progressing at an alarming rate this past week.  We’ve spent so much time there lately that sometimes it’s hard to remember what things were like before all the drywall went up.  A lot of work had to be done under the surface, all new plumbing (as you’ve already seen some evidence of), all new electrical and many hours spent in a dark, dusty place went into us getting a workable space.  All of which is now more or less invisible to the naked eye.  It’s amazing how a layer of drywall changes the entire feeling of the space.  Here’s a couple of ‘before & after’ photos for you.

There’s so much more to tell you and show you, so stay tuned in the next few days for more photos with a bit more finished shots.

It’s that time of year yet again (Annie’s FAVORITE!) and I thought I’d take the opportunity to tell you about a couple of gift ideas.

1. First, our dear friend Cameron McKague and his partner Jennifer Griffiths have put together a really beautiful and fun calendar.  From etsy:

You can see more and purchase on etsy: http://www.etsy.com/listing/87270515/2012-calendar-year-of-the-apocalypse-2

2. Secondly, we’re getting gift cards made!  Although there’s only a slight chance we’ll be open before Christmas you can still give your loved ones the gift of Matchstick this Christmas.  They are designed by the aforementioned Cameron McKague and Dirk Wright and will be printed using the same process as the above calendars.  As soon as they’re printed we’ll get some pictures up here on the blog.  If you’re interested and/or would like a little more information please feel free to email us at ‘info AT matchstickcoffee.com’

Until then, we hope you’re having a fantastic December.

The time has come.  We’re getting closer to our opening date and we’re looking for people who are interested in being a part of our opening team.

If you are passionate about excellent coffee, great food, and treating people well, then we should talk.

We are looking for bakers, baristas, and front of house employees. Positions will become available from late December to early January, depending on our final opening date.

No experience is required for front of house positions. Willingness to learn is.

Please email your resume to info ‘at’ matchstickcoffee.com

We look forward to meeting you.

As you might recall from the first ‘before’ pictures we posted quite some time back, the cafe didn’t have many redemptive qualities that we wanted to show off.  Nobody really wants to hang out in a place with disintegrating ceiling tiles, old worn vinyl flooring and broken fluorescent lighting.  That being said, we’re trying to reuse and reinvigorate what elements of character do exist in the space.  Also, as well as the new stuff we’re putting into the space, we’re also trying to incorporate a number of reclaimed items.  Because I want to maintain some element of surprise, I’m going to avoid putting any ‘after’ photos in but I thought it would be fun to at least show you some of the process of making these old things new again.

1. The Vault

While I can’t confirm this, we’ve been told our space was actually the home of the first Bank of Montreal in the city of Vancouver.  Civic records show that the building was built in 1926 but because of an unfortunate renovation in 1970 the original bank vault is all that remains.  Since completely removing something as significant as a vault is out of the question, we’re turning  it into our office. The original door will be a decorative element in the cafe.  After many hours or paint stripping (don’t worry, we used the ‘eco’ stuff…) and grinding, we were able to get back to the old metal, spruce up the hardware and give the door a fresh coat of paint.

2. Japanese card table

One afternoon, after a long conversation about what we were going to do for our condiment stand yielded no productive results, we stumbled upon this piece of furniture out behind our building by the dumpster.  Success!  ’Back alley’ is the new ‘antique store.’

3. Espresso machine.

We’re big fans of LaMarzocco espresso machines.  Equally big fans of the Linea.  It’s not the fanciest machine on the market, it doesn’t have the most bells and whistles but its reliable and its built to last.  We got a refurbished Linea that’s been tricked out with a few much desired modifications and ended up with a fantastic piece of equipment which we can’t wait to brew coffee on.  Once acquired, Spencer & I set about taking the thing apart and getting it powder-coated.  Again, you’ll have to wait for any official ‘after’ photos but here’s a teaser.

Along with all the dirty, dusty and tough work of building the cafe there is always a never ending list of little decisions that need to be made constantly.  ”What will the faucets be like? Will there be two lights here or three? Should we have a shelf here? What will it be made of?”  While in the moment, these all seem little and insignificant, their sum total is what will dictate the feel, ambiance and functionality of the cafe, so they cannot be taken lightly.

One of the highlights has been visiting our new friend Karl again and picking up some more material for a different fun project.  It turns out he’s a lot more polite and politically correct when Annie’s with us.  She tends to have that effect.  Regardless, we again found some really neat stuff that we’re excited to get into the cafe.  There’s also something incredibly satisfying with doing business face to face.  When most of our purchases are online, it’s a nice change to go find what we want, talk about a price and write a cheque on the spot.

It can get tedious, we’ve been on more shopping trips than I can count.  But whether we’re mocking up lighting ideas using milk crates, or stuffing the trunk of the car with glassware, we try to keep things fun.
Also, for your enjoyment, here’s one of the creepiest photos of Spencer ever taken.

Since receiving our building permits a couple of weeks ago, work has begun in earnest on the cafe.  The first step was to trench over 100′ feet of concrete in order to run new drains and water lines.  Then, of course, it all had to be covered up with new concrete.  It certainly wasn’t the most glamorous of work, but we’ll be very thankful every time we turn on a faucet or pour something down the drain.

While most of our construction process thus far has involved demolition, there have been some pretty exciting moments of discovery, inspiration and community.   This is a quick story about a couple of those moments.

It’s amazing what you can discover once you start looking.  We were recently tipped off to a guy named Karl who had a lumberyard full of reclaimed timber.  I think he may actually have every single decommissioned warehouse and shipyard from the lower mainland dismantled and stored on his lot.  While we could have spent hours wandering among the stacks of old beams, we were especially drawn to a 20-foot long chunk of Douglas Fir that he had recovered.  The tree had fallen naturally, and had been down for a number of years by the time it came into Karl’s possession.  He had it sawn into rough slabs which were stacked to dry – and we knew we had to have one of them.

Karl overseeing the milling of one of his trees.

Our future table and the rest of her family.

Since our very first conversations about opening a café we knew we wanted to have a large communal table if the space would allow it.  I won’t go on and on about why we think they’re so great except to say that we love the potential they provide.   Its use can change depending on the time of day, how many people are occupying it and what activities are happening at any given time – it belongs to no person or purpose exclusively.  Needless to say, we’re pretty excited about this slab of wood.

Of course, we had to get the thing inside our doors.  We don’t have a big garage door or a forklift or anything to that effect, so sheer manpower was our only option.  I threw out a small plea for help on Facebook & Twitter and within a short time various people from different parts of my life had volunteered to help haul the thing inside.  Many hands made short work, and we quickly moved to sitting around (read: ON) this new table, drinking a few Red Racers.  Within minutes this table was already facilitating what we hoped as people made introductions, shared stories, talked about Vancouver history and laughed.  It was a small moment, but to us it was a significant one.

Plus, the thing looks pretty damn cool.

We’ve been in our space for nearly a month now and we’ve been neglectful in writing.  So first off please accept our apologies for the sparse information so far.  We’re hoping we can up the frequency of posts in the next while and share more of what’s going on.  To start off we wanted to share with you a few images from the ongoing process of renovation.  It’s probably best to start out with a few of the ‘before’ shots to see what we’ve been working with.  In the days and weeks to come we’ll post some images of the transformation.

One of the first things we discovered was that underneath the boring plaster were the original timber posts.  You find fun stuff when you start breaking things!  After a little application of elbow grease we’re quite pleased with the result.

We’re very pleased to have this space to put our stamp on.  It’s been a long time in the making.  Every day we’re a little bit closer to opening the doors, and we can’t help it that it makes us smile.

This post is a little overdue, but here is a quick note none-the-less.

We recently had the privilege of being involved at the Prairie Regional Barista Competition in Calgary.  We had an absolute blast.  We drank a lot of really fantastic coffee, met a lot of interesting and knowledgable people and generally found ourselves being inspired around every turn.  The competition was also top notch, with the top 4 competitors setting the bar extremely high (2 each from Transcend and Phil & Sebastian).  We must extend big thanks to Fratello Coffee and Phil & Sebastian for being great hosts.