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Home Grown: Take Five Café

V.I.A.'s Home Grown features only the most awesome companies in Vancouver. From tiny, single-person operations to the big players, we profile our favourite businesses and interview their owners and operators.

V.I.A.'s Home Grown features only the most awesome companies in Vancouver. From tiny, single-person operations to the big players, we profile our favourite businesses and interview their owners and operators.

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Take Five Café

Established 2003

takefivecafe.ca


Take Five Café is a Vancouver-based company started by two brothers and since 2003, they've grown to ten different locations in Metro Vancouver.

They're proud of their Vancouver roots and whenever possible, they like to also support small local businesses; Their milk comes from a family farm in Abbotsford, not a big box, nameless and faceless chain. Their chocolate (that pairs perfectly with their coffee) comes from Schokolade Café, an East Vancouver family who have made chocolate for years. Their arugula used in some of our panini is grown in co-founder Steve Punzo’s fathers’ backyard.

There's a passion here that you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else, and Take Five Café likes to give back to their community. For the fourth consecutive year, they're supporting the Pink Shirt Day Anti-Bullying campaign. For the month of February, all proceeds from the sale of pink cupcakes were donated to the CKNW Orphans’ Fund.

They regularly support Big Brothers of Greater Vancouver – not only in their annual Bowling event, but also with custom-designed contests and events specifically for the big and little brothers.

And they don’t throw out any non-sellable food items. Instead they'll donate them to The Kettle Friendship Society, an amazing organization that supports people living with mental illnesses, who’s main drop in centre (which is just up the street from their main kitchen) services hundreds of people a day.

We got co-founder Steve Punzo to answer a few questions about their business for us.

If Take Five Cafe is known for one thing amongst its customers, what would it be?

Flavour. We pay particular attention to the flavour profile in everything we do – whether coffee, food or wine pairings. Creating a café culture that is reminiscent of the cafes in Europe means that everything has to taste fresh, honest, delicious.

What’s your favourite Take Five Cafe location and why?

My favourite Take Five Café location is our newest café, in Gastown. Not only is it our tenth location, which was an important milestone to us, but it showcases the evolution of our brand. It combines the best of our coffee shop style with a café culture from Europe – with meat, cheese, wine and beer pairings. It’s perfect for everything from daytime meetings to light evening meals with friends to special events that use the whole space.

Aside from Take Five Cafe, what’s your favourite Vancouver business and why?

If I’m thinking in the same industry as ours, I really love what La Quercia and La Pentola are doing. Their business style just makes sense. It’s family style food, really good Italian food. They’re local guys doing some great things.

Calling Vancouver home also means that the Canucks and the Lions are my favourite businesses/sports team. I love going to games, even following them on the road if I have a chance, and they create a great atmosphere for Vancouver.

What keeps you here? Like what’s the best thing about Vancouver?

I would have to say it’s a combination of the people and the diversity. There are so many amazing people and cultures that make up each individual neighbourhood. And I also love the fact that I can see the beach, go golfing, and skiing, all in the same day. It’s a big city, with a small town feel. What keeps me here is Vancouver itself. It’s my home. It’s the only place I want to spend the majority of my time.

takefivecafe.ca