Conversations

Conversations today: banal generalities that lack depth.

I find there is a loss of meaningful conversations in a sea of 140 character tweets and status messages. Very few people take the time to focus on the topics that truly have an impact on our daily lives. We shy away from religion and politics because we don’t want to upset the people sitting across us.

A freedom of speech is only worthwhile if we are not afraid to say what is on our mind.

Instead, we want to talk about sports, celebrities, the Royal family, and debate about what will happen with the Star Wars franchise. By avoiding the deeper topics, we avoid getting in touch with what it means to be human. Life amounts to nothing more than distractions and stresses that are ultimately frivolous.

As I sit here in a coffee shop, there are no conversations happening. Coffee culture has been replaced with to go cups and cell phones. People are more interested in what is happening in their life (through their phone) than in who is sharing that experience in the coffee shop with them. Perhaps, they steal a glance to scan the room for people they know and any attractive men/women, but that is the extent human interactions go.

Baristas make small talk with customers when they aren’t busy. Of course, when a different customer comes in the door, things grind to a halt. Conversations end with a thud, not with an invitation for others to join in. Taking care of the customer takes precedence over any other events that may be happening.

We have so much more in common with each other than we think. It is frustrating to look around and not being able to connect. There are unspoken rules when you are supposed to approach people. In a convention of thousands of people, it is okay. In a coffee shop with five patrons, it is more threatening.

I get it. People are busy. People will always be busy surviving, doing what it takes to get through their days, whether it is the prior commitments with social gatherings, work or raising a family. With all the technological achievements of the past 300 years, we still can’t manage to find the time to connect with people.

I wonder what fear we have that keeps us away from each other now.

If we don’t have the patience to type “you,” how are we to discover the richness of life?

3 Years Ago

I am writing to inform you that I am resigning from my position and leaving the company. This letter is to be considered my thirty days notice, with my last day of work being October 16th, 2009.

Three years.

Three years and a month ago, I stayed at work late to type up that letter in my office. Once everyone was gone, I slipped it under the door of the General Manager and slipped out. Three years ago today, I left my office for the last time, and a week later was the last time I stepped into either of the hotels I worked at, leaving behind business relationships, friendships, and a town I had called home for 13 years of my life.

I have learned a lot over the past three and a half years I have been working at the Best Western Gold Rush Inn and the High Country Inn, from the staff members, the General Managers, and from the management team at Northern Vision. It has been a great experience for me, and I am thankful that I have been able to progress as far as I did. I hope I have helped make the two hotels into the best properties in Whitehorse, and overcome the losses incurred from previous years. I am sure the hotels will continue to succeed and surpass many of the marks we have set this year.

It’s strange for me to re-read this letter now, realizing that I have been separated from the hotels nearly as long as I worked there. I have far too many stories to share about my experiences there. The hotels basically changed my life. Starting off as a Front Desk agent working for Gold Nuggie Dougie to working with a colourful Turkish man to being a manager at two hotels in the city of Whitehorse. Not only did I learn a lot about the hotel business, but I learned a lot about life.

When I first started at the hotel, I was the quietest man imaginable. I am still quiet now, but unbelievably quiet then. Working at the hotel really helped me become more confident with approaching people and making small talk – the one thing I am horrible at but can do a much better job with now. I learned how to create friendships once again, enjoy the nightlife, learned the difference between a good tequila and rum compared to a sub-par one, learned to love martinis and dress up as a man with a suit and tie.

The hotels really created who I am right now. It is almost as if they acted as two hands, molding me over the years. When I grew too tall, they knocked me down again to rebuild me a bit differently to make me stronger in the end.

Most people tend to think about graduating high school or University as the major shifts in their lives. While they were fun years, the three and a half years at the hotel easily surpass the experiences I had at Univeristy and high school. Leaving the hotel is a moment I will always remember, because when I left, I was not only moving on from the hotels start a new life for me, but I was about to witness a new life being born: my daughter.

3 years ago, I made the toughest, most natural, and best decision I have ever made in my life.

A Sailor Jerry Night

Long lit up tonight and still drinking

Don’t we have anything to live for?

Well of course we do

But till they come true

We’re drinking

Japandroids, “The Nights of Wine and Roses”

Have you ever had one of those nights where you’re completely restless, no matter what you do, you’re not completely satisfied?

I’m having one of those nights tonight. The day has been full of little changes in plans. First, it was planning to go for a long hike, but then it started pouring rain after I had put on my shoes. Then I was supposed to meet up with the ex to give her something, and then she changed her mind. Finally, it was walking over to a neighbourhood pub to watch the UFC fights, only to discover they weren’t showing them.

Instead of having a meal and some drinks in the pub, I returned home to have a few drinks while watching the baseball game on tonight. It’s the playoffs, my favourite time of year, and the game tonight was especially dramatic. A large lead heading into the bottom of the 9th inning, only to have the other team rally and tie it up. It went on for a few more innings, so I got my money’s worth of entertainment in the end.

The entire time I am sitting on the couch, I felt the desire to do something more. I stayed on the couch, because I couldn’t quite figure out what to do. I felt an urge to write. Without a topic in mind, I gave up on that idea (for the moment). My body was already sore from an earlier workout and I didn’t want put even more strain on it. No one wants to clean at 10 PM at night, regardless of the day. Instead, my mind meanders through all sorts of topics: what kind of woman I want in my life, where to find her, what to do with work, reflecting on my daughter’s growth, and so forth.

When the ball game ends, I get up to turn off the television, fix myself a strong drink, and put on some music to act as a muse. I figure the combination of the music and drink would settle me down somewhat. I sit down in my office to play with ideas, both through the keyboard and a notepad.

I have been playing around with an idea for a new website to preoccupy some time on the weekends, forcing me to get out of the house a little more. I want to write about coffee shops and little anecdotes about the culture created in those spaces. The conversations, the art, the music, the spoken word. Be a little more focused than this space, while still offering some freedom of topics to cover. I have always wanted to write more about art and culture but could never figure out the best approach. It felt weird to be sketching out this concept while drinking a rum ‘n’ coke, so I decided not to pursue it much further than a shell of an idea.

Flesh it out in the morning with a fresh mind. And a cup of coffee.

Saturday night is the worse night for a guy like me to be feeling restless. If I’m more extroverted, it would be so much easier. I would be out at a club, dancing, listening to the music, or just drinking at a bar and trying to strike up conversation. Going to a pool hall and challenging the other guys, go some place to try and find a girl for a night.

But that isn’t me. I don’t seek out those opportunites to interact with people like that. The only situation I feel even remotely comfortable with is sitting around a blackjack table. Everyone has something in common: we’re either all winning or losing, rarely (in my experience) is it a bit of both. That option isn’t a very compelling solution for my anxious behaviour tonight. Mainly because the local casino is evil. Partially because it’s a Saturday night and would be busy as hell.

Instead, I find myself writing this. Writing, deleting, pausing to read and edit on the fly, delete more, write even more. Barely 700 words and it has taken what feels like a lifetime to get to this point. When you have plenty of time to kill, this doesn’t bother me at all.

Although, the entire time I am writing this, I keep asking myself: what am I missing?

Japandroids – iTunes

The Parenthood Divide

Over the course of the past half-century, American society generally has seen a dramatic rise in single-parent families. Children born to unmarried mothers have soared from 10 percent of the total in 1969 to an astonishing 41 percent in 2008. Meanwhile, the share of children living with two married parents has fallen from 77 percent in 1980 to 65 percent in 2011.

The Real Problem With Helicopter Parents: There Aren’t Enough of Them | The Atlantic

A few days after I wrote up my thoughts on being part of an epidemic, this article gets published. It’s an interesting read comparing low-income parents with college-educated parents now to years prior, but the above paragraph really stood out for me. I knew people were trending towards single parenting, but that’s quite the shift within a few generations.

The other line that stood was this:

The time that college-educated dads spent with their kids rose from 5 to 10 hours, while for less-educated dads the increase was from around 4 hours to around 8 hours.

That’s in a week. I spend 10 hours with my daughter in a day for three or more days of the week (this week while she’s been sick, it’s up to 60 hours already). I know this will change when she is in school, but it helps put the amount of time I spend with her into perspective and why I do tend to get some weird looks when in the park or when people make comments about how often they see me out with my daughter.

The times they are a changing.

Reading Material: NSFW Corp, The Magazine

Many publications focus on reviews and comparisons, or bring you as much news as quickly as possible. The Magazine will not serve those roles. Instead, it takes a measured approach to the big picture: rather than telling readers everything that happens in technology, The Magazine delivers meaningful editorial and big-picture articles.

– Marco Arment, The Magazine – Foreward

Like Marco Arment, I have always strived to write more about the big picture of things than little things to gain page views. Writing about the big picture is far easier than finding the big picture writers, however. It has been an ongoing battle for me to seek out these writers or sites that can capture my mind, making me want to read everything they publish.

Doing this with television shows is much easier, now that there are whole seasons of shows available on NetFlix or iTunes to purchase/rent. Magazines have always been limited to Harpers, The Atlantic, and the New Yorker for nearly ten years now. Online reading has been a struggle until one service was launched several months ago, and a new one launched yesterday.

NSFW Corp

If you have followed my Twitter stream for a while, you will have noticed now and then that I tweet out links to articles from Not Safe For Work Corp. NSFW Corp is a paid subscription service ($3.00 a month) churning out social commentary about the world’s events and has been doing so for several months now. The key word being commentary. This is not a news site publishing articles to gain advertising money. This site is about publishing quality articles to keep readers interested and sharing.

Like its name, the articles tend to be slightly not safe for work with their language and, at times, the topics. To me, the topics are not only interesting but also always current. There aren’t any long profiles about people from years past, nor stories that have taken years to research and write. They are entertaining, perhaps a bit blunt, and mildly crude. I would almost guess that the authors are drunk when writing, but not drunk enough that the articles are littered with errors. The good kind of drunk.

Here are some of the latest titles (links will expire by October 14th, so read now):

You don’t have to subcribe to NSFW, because I will continue to share links to the posts I find the most interesting (I can share 10 a month) through Twitter. I would still encourage you to give it a test-drive to see how you feel about it. It’s only 3 bucks. My daughter finds that much money picking up coins off the street in a month.

The Magazine

The Magazine has been hinted at by Marco through his podcast, Build and Analyze, for a month now. No one knew the scope of the project until Thursday when it was released. For those who don’t know, Marco is the creator of Instapaper, the read-it-later service that strips out advertisements, puts the content into a crisp font, and makes it available to read on your iPad, iPhone, Android, or the web. It really is a must-have app for people who do a lot of reading.

The Magazine is not an evolution of Instapaper or a replacement, but complements it. It is a digital magazine of only four articles each issue, published bi-weekly. The writers and articles are selected by Marco, with subjects that appeal to most people who love technology. There has only been one issue released so far. The authors were: Alex Payne, Guy English, Jason Snell, and Michael Lopp.

I quite enjoyed the four articles, and I suspect if you like technology, they will be of interest to you, as well. There is a 7 day trial period, so the first issue is free as long as you can cancel.

The Rest

I have been on a quest to pare down my reading this past summer. I wouldn’t say I am quite succeeding at it, but I am getting there. While I follow a lot of blogs, most don’t post daily or even weekly, so the amount of reading material is limited. Here are some other sources I read on a daily basis to keep me caught up in what is happening with technology, politics, and culture.

Between those three sites, NSFW Corp, and now The Magazine, I have a decent mix of reading material to keep me occupied during the quiet moments.

The Only Feeling That Makes Sense – Sons of Anarchy

It’s hard not to hate.

People, things, institutions. When they break your spirit and take pleasure in watching you bleed.

Hate is the only feeling that makes sense.

But I know what hates does to a man. Tears him apart. Turns him into something he’s not. Something he promised himself he’d never become.

Sometimes my life feels like a deadly balancing act, what I feel slamming up against what I should do. Impulsive reactions racing to solutions miles ahead of my brain.

– Jackson Teller, Sons of Anarchy

There are a lot of emotions that I feel on a daily basis, but Jackson’s right.

Hate is the only feeling that makes sense.

Jealousy was the only emotion that comes close to making sense to me. It still confuses the heck out of me with how quickly those feelings come alive within me. Love makes you do things in the moment that may not make sense when looking back upon them. How can you pin down what makes you happy? A smile can appear in the most random moments.

Needless to say, you are watching this show, right?

Sons of Anarchy, Season 1 – iTunes

Part of an Epidemic

In the doctor’s office with my daughter, the doctor asked if I was checking my daughter’s temperature regularly. I answered by saying that I had left the thermometer at her mom’s place. That led her to respond with, “You’re separated? That’s a growing epidemic.”

I wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to this statement. On one hand, I am a part of a growing problem (trend?) with younger generations. On the other hand, it could be a much worse life for my daughter.

There are probably a thousand reasons why people have children together but ultimately split up within the first five years of their lives. I would hesitate to guess that one of the main forces in driving couples apart is substance abuse of some kind or physical abuse. Whereas previous generations tolerated the abuses they were surrounded by or went through, and probably ignored the impact it would have on their children, the new ones are less likely to put up with it.

The number of support systems built up for people in abusive relationships is most likely far greater than it was 25 years ago. A quick search on Wikipedia tells me that the first modern women’s shelter (not a religious place of refuge) was opened in 1964. The first widely known shelter was opened in 1971. Today, there are shelters in all cities and communities, big or small. Each shelter has access to Government programs and agencies to insure the safety of the woman and the children, and provide a step up to get going again (at least in Canada).

There are fewer reasons to try and make the relationship work if it isn’t working out from the beginning. Women are climbing the organizational ladders much faster and higher than they were a generation or two ago. They are much more likely to have sufficient funds to take care of a family on their own (assuming they don’t find a new partner) than before. Without that financial dependence on a partner, cutting ties is more of a calculated risk than nearly impossible.

The question that I keep thinking about as I see so many single parents or blended families now is whether it is beneficial to us all in the longterm or not? I grew up being raised by my parents who have been married nearly 40 years now. We moved as a unit with the only major separation starting when I left for University. Almost all of my friends through school lived with their two parents and siblings, as well. I could probably count the number of single parents I knew on one hand, and some were separated not by choice but by the death of a spouse.

Regardless of how my daughter’s time is split between her mother and I, she is always going to have to visit another household. She is also likely going to have several friends living in that kind of environment. I wonder how challenging this is going to be for kids as they grow up. I think about the boy that is living by my parents asking about whether my daughter is coming over to visit. When the response is that she’s with her mom for a few days, he gets rather bummed out about it. These kids could potentially have a childhood of more disappointment and less playing with the same core group of friends all the time.

Maybe it will be better for them to diversify their group of playmates instead of having the same group. Time will better answer that question than I ever could.

For now, I am a part of an “epidemic,” standing out as one of the few single males staying at home to take care of a child. In the coming years, I imagine it will be much more of the norm – both the separated parents and single men working from home with a child. Whether that is good or not, I do not know, but I know that I act in a way that all parents act regardless of their marital status: to do what is best for our children.

Karma Bank

When I was down in the coffee shop this Thanksgiving Sunday to grab something to drink, I glanced down to read the horoscope that they had posted by the cream and sugar. This is what I saw for mine:

Scorpio

The more you do for other people now the more they will do for you later, so provide what it is they need and do it with a smile on your face. Your generosity will come back to you many times over.

I have been raised to act with good intentions all the time, to help those in need, to never cheat or lie to others, and have always been thankful when someone does do something for me. It has never been at the fore-front of my thoughts, but lately I have been starting to wonder, “At what point will this generosity come back to me?”

Now, I’m not one to crave money nor attention. Some grateful thank you’s are all I really need, some conversation thrown in now and then maybe, or, at the very least, a smile. When I have loaned out money to others, I have never demanded repayment quickly or set any terms on it. It was never that important to me, which is probably one of the reasons why I am so poor with handling it when I do have it. I almost seem to prefer living a life in near poverty than I do of luxury.

Money is only one example of how I have been helping others through my life. Time and knowledge are the other things I have been quite willing to donate to others. Such things are difficult to pay back because they are nearly impossible to quantify. They are also things I don’t expect to be paid back in any form. All I ask is for my gift to them to be recognized and appreciated.

I have been so completely willing to devote time to others to help them out, rarely saying no to anything, that it is easy to depend upon me. I will always be there to pick up the slack, cover shifts when required, be on call for late night technical problems, help book tickets or make purchases online for people who don’t have credit cards. Knowing that I am there and willing to respond in a positive manner makes it easy for people to abuse me. More often than not, I help someone out of the blue, and then they disappear to the way side and I hardly hear from them until they need help the next time.

Needless to say, I have a lot of karma in the bank. Or I would like to think I do considering the outstanding debts of several people and the tasks I have done for others in this past year.

What I am wishing for is a way to withdraw that karma from my savings account and apply it to my life to give me a bit of a boost in some areas. Have a new car waiting for me, find a $100 bill on the ground, or even just win a free coffee from a Tim Horton’s Roll-Up-The-Rim-To-Win cup once in a while.

A common phrase I have heard through my life is everything happens for a reason, so it is quite possible that I haven’t reached that point where I deserve to be paid back.

I really hope it comes soon though.


Hopeless Wanderer – Babel | Mumford & Sons

Why I Am Switching to iPhone from Android

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

– Steve Jobs

The dots have not been connecting for me lately, which is one of the main reasons why I am switching to using an iPhone 5.

I have been using an Android device for 2.5 years now. Having been a heavy Google user (Gmail, Reader, Docs, Search, etc) for many years, having that data accessible to me without jumping through hoops was extremely important to me. The native apps for Gmail have always been better with Android than they have for iOS, for example, which was a factor in keeping me in the Android ecosystem.

I also bought into owning an open system that I could modify freely and easily. Each Android phone I purchased (Motorola Milestone, Samsung Nexus S, I learned to unlock right away in order to upgrade it to the latest release of Android without having to wait for the carrier to release it.

There was a slight problem when I did this each time. Upgrading the OS broke several of the apps I came to rely on, and there was little reason for them to provide an updated version of the apps since very few people would be using the latest OS for a while. I lived with this annoyance each time and moved onto other apps to replace the functions I missed most.

This is quite the contrast to when I upgraded my iPad to iOS 6 this year. App updates came quickly, and I believe every app I have is now iOS 6 ready. You don’t appreciate that kind of speediness to app updates unless you have been using other systems that have much slower rollouts.

The other issues I have had with the phone have been rather minor[1], so what would compel me to drop it and spend a lot of money to upgrade to an iPhone 5?

The ecosystem.

In my definition, the ecosystem is how you use apps to both create and read data, plus how you share that data with other systems. At the core of the ecosystem is how you discover those apps and where your data is stored.

In an isolated environment, either the Android or iOS ecosystem is fine. My parents have Android devices, I loaded music up for them, showed them how to download a few games like Angry Birds, and how to log into Facebook. Apart from learning how to text message, make phonecalls, and get their photos off of the phone and onto their computers, that is all they really want to use their phones for.

If you are like me and wanting to work with data between mobile devices and your computer, things become more complicated and frustrating. To me, mobile devices are more than just a communication device (phone, text messaging, Twitter, Facebook, email). They are an augmentation of my brain, even more so than my computer.

If I see something, I either want to capture that moment (picture, a note), find out more about it (Wikipedia, YouTube, Google Search), or share it (email, Twitter, Facebook). More often than not, it is about learning more about something. A restaurant review, how it is outside, whether there is a big sports game happening, and so on. The other common moment is when I want to capture an idea or quote for a future blog post or a business idea to build upon for a client. With the right app, I find the initial thought flows down into action quickly and easily.

Actions are completed almost instaneously because I have the device with me almost all the time now. There is no delay in getting to my computer, or scrambling to find a notepad to write something down. When you are already laying down in bed, who wants to turn on a light and take the time to write something down? Pick up the phone, enter in a note or set a reminder and you are done in seconds.

The disconnect I have been feeling lately with Android has to do with getting the captured moments over to my Mac or to the iPad. I don’t have this issue if I am working with my iPad somewhere and want to move a blog post idea over to the Mac. I can jot it down in Byword, and then open it up again in Byword on my Mac through iCloud sync. To do lists are another thing that are difficult for me to manage properly. The interfaces are either great on Android, great on the iPad, or great on the Mac, but never all three for me.

That is a slight nuisance. Keeping the other important data information is a little easier since there are multiple services you can use now: Google Drive, SkyDrive, Dropbox, and iCloud. There is a difference between them all with how you store your data and access it, however, so the choice is not so simple to make. When I was exploring my options and then looking at the various iPhone 5 reviews[2], I came across Geof Harries’ post about creating a cloud-centric Windows set-up. Towards the end, he outlines his requirements for the perfect cloud solution:

  1. The ability for me to set up a common group of directories/folders that I can name myself and be shared and synced across all of the computers. If these directories need to be in different locations on each computer because of the software that uses them, like fonts, I must be able to easily create links between those folders.
  2. The provider I choose should be, as much as possible, independent of the technology that accesses it. In other words, I shouldn’t have to use a manufacturer’s hardware or software in order to get at the files I’ve stored with them (as is the case with Apple). Some proprietary software is fine, but too much is unacceptable.

The more I thought about what I needed to do, the more I realized I was opposite to what Geof was looking for. He wanted control over a structure; I wanted a dumping ground that automatically had flow. I want to be able to find something easily, without having to worry about where I stored it.

I looked at how my Mac was organized and realized I allowed the operating system to do most of the organizing for me. All my music/movies are organized through iTunes, I move over PDFs/eBooks into iTunes right away, as well to sync with the iPad. Pictures get added to iPhoto. The work files are organized in one spot, but most of my other data is organized through apps.

I had structured most of my workflows to iOS even before I had the iPad, did I want to unravel that a bit to add in a new system to organize files or build upon it?

The natural solution is to build upon what has been working and believe that an iPhone will only make it that much better. I already use Byword for my writing (on Mac and iPad), but I would be able to do that even more with an iPhone. With Poster, I could not only blog from my iPad but also from my phone. I would eliminate the process of uploading my photos to my Mac for backup, because that would happen automatically through iPhone. And, of course, all the apps I would be using, I have already purchased. There would be no need for me to re-purchase them.

When the option is choosing between a disjointed solution or a seamless solution, I am going to choose seamless from now on.

iPhone 5, I can’t wait to hold you in my hand.

  1. WiFi network has been dropping a lot lately, rather slow when opening apps or when there are several running, Camera is slow opening, not easy to get music onto the device, low quality with apps.  ↩

  2. iOS reviews: Rene Ritchie, The Verge | iPhone 5 reviews: Daring Fireball, MG Siegler  ↩

Urban Fare – #Kelowna, British Columbia

At Urban Fare, freshness is pinnacle, closely followed by our desire to bring you world-class gourmet foods and provide you with an exceptional shopping experience. After all, everyone needs a little gourmet everyday.

I love that last line.

It is the line that really compelled me to go visit the new Urban Fare store that opened in Kelowna, BC.[1] I saw the flyers in our paper and had driven past the signage for the store before it had opened, both of which caused me to be curious about it. When I looked around their website to get a better idea of what to expect, I found that quote on their job site and decided to take some time to explore the store.

Quick background: Urban Fare is operated by Overwaitea Food Group, who also own the Save-On Foods and Cooper Foods brands, amongst others. Urban Fare is a more specialized grocery store, offering a wider selection of items but still offers the items you are expecting to see (i.e. they still sell Coke and Pepsi, and still have all the Westen Family foods). Right now, there are limited locations in British Columbia, but I would expect there would be more of them opening up across the province and maybe into Alberta. The Urban Fare store is actually right arond the corner from the Save-On Foods, so if it doesn’t have something you need, you won’t have to go far in order to find it. And, yes, your More Rewards card is still valid at Urban Fare.

With that out of the way, I can tell you that Urban Fare is quite a different shopping experience than one is accustomed to. I went into the store expecting to have an experience similar to that of when I walked into a Whole Foods when living in the States. I was wrong about that. Whole Foods is more of a healthy grocery store; Urban Fare is a healthy shopping experience.

This is fairly apparent as soon as you walk into the store. There are no shopping carts to be seen. People used wireframe baskets to put items into. The walkways are quite wide for the most part, allowing you to easily navigate the store without bumping into people or having to wait for a line of carts to pass through, and so forth. The other noticeable change? You can actually see end-to-end. I stepped into the store and with a quick scan of my eyes, I knew where things were generally going to be located.

That doesn’t sound like anything major, but it makes a big difference. Not only do you know where things are, you can see where the people are, too. I knew to avoid the produce area first, because there were more people milling around there, and instead headed to the deli area to start exploring. For people who have a certain order they like to shop in everytime, this probably won’t matter much. But for people like me, who know what they want and don’t mind poking around a bit, it’s perfect.

There are other things that separate Urban Fare from the other grocery stores apart from ease to access. The selection in the store is quite broad. What I mean by that is their cheese section is huge; they had over 50 coffee bean roasts to choose from; they had a chocolate kiosk the size of a store in a mall. Each area was quite impressive to wander through and look at all the items I had never seen before. The number of delicate chocolates they had on display was a bit overwhelming, but it will make it easier when picking out chocolate on those special occasions.

The other large area that will easily stand out is the Restaurant/Lounge. The sitting area is quite spacious, with combination of booth chairs and table and chairs. There is free WiFi, several televisions around the area, and a coffee bar to the side. The area for food is setup more like a cafeteria buffet – but the options are much, much better. A wide selection of cold drinks, salad bar, hot food selections, gourmet items pre-made, a carving station with different meats through the week, and more. If you have a craving for something, you are likely to find it here. The prices were reasonable, as well. I am much more likely to spend a morning/afternoon working at the Urban Fare than sitting in a Starbucks.

The final item I wanted to mention is how expansive Urban Fare’s selection is with local products. I had been noticing the aisle that focused on BC products at the Save-On Foods growing over time with its offerings. At Urban Fare, the types of products available from BC are not only much broader, but the selection is better, too. With the coffee, for example, they had around seven different brands, with each brand having several types of roasts available. It was a fun area to poke around, and I look forward to browsing through it again in the future.

Now, here we are, nearly a thousand words on a grocery store. While others get excited over having a new lululemon or H&M store open up, I am equally excited over Urban Fare. The prices are slightly higher than Save-On, but the experience is something that can’t be compared.

Urban Fare will definitely be my go-to store for my weekly grocery shops.

  1. This is probably the first and only time I will review a grocery store, and I understand it is only available in British Columbia right now, but hopefully it will be of interest to others.  ↩
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