Caffe Artigiano at Stong's Replenish

I just wish that this place had more items without dairy. It seems that most food items have cheese in them. Too bad I can't eat there anymore. But, if more items were brought in that consider lactose intolerant customers, let me know because I like your coffee.

The Caffe Artigiano at the Stong’s Market in Dunbar is a rather unique collaboration between two well known Vancouver based food service businesses. Both of their commitments to providing excellent quality in both product and service makes even the prospect of a partnership of this sort exciting. As someone who was rather unbeknownst to coffee and its intricacies, I was very impressed by the Baristas and their enthusiasm in providing me an avenue to learn about the different types of coffee and their makeup. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve gone through every coffee on the menu, and I believe I have a fairly good understanding of what’s on offer here. Starting with the atmosphere, it's rather slow in the mornings but ends up picking drastically as noon draws closer and closer. With it being located alongside a grocery store, it makes the day to day ambience rather chaotic, but I would say it's the good type of chaos, one that invigorates rather than debilitates. Options for seating include both outside patio seating with table, chairs and umbrellas included. Whilst the inside has both tables and chairs along with bar style seating. The whole vibe is rather casual, which is fine. Although if I was to give a critique, it lacks any special piece of decor that gives it true character or a distinct theme. The quality of coffee is rather nice, the Cardamom Latte, Marrochino and French press are some of my personal favourites. The manager herself however, was quick to tell me that better coffee can be found elsewhere (not very supportive of the brand it seems…). That being said, I think it's certainly a spot worth exploring. Cost is what you’d expect with most coffee shops in Vancouver, 5 to 6 dollars for a regular coffee and up to 7 or 8 if you really go for something fancy. Not ideal but that’s the economy we’re currently in. Service in my opinion, is unparalleled. There isn’t a day where the baristas aren’t responsive and friendly, although some credit can go to my natural charm in this regard. Coffee is delivered quickly with a small helping of cookies that you can nibble on. A small nitpick on the service side would be that the number of cookies provided seems to vary from 1 to 3, the factors that affect this variability are still unknown to me. Additionally, there is a tendency for a small contingent of the baristas to get excessively invested into a conversation. These however are small nitpicks to an ultimately exceptional service, for which all credit goes to the baristas and their manager.