The Best of Both Worlds - Post No. 19
While driving from Victoria to Tofino, we decided a refreshment stop was in order. Google told us that on our route, Duncan B.C. had an excellent bakery/cafe about 2 blocks off the Trans Canada Highway. So we made a stop. Not only was it an excellent bakery, full of wonderful smells and pleasant people behind the counter, but it was no more than 50 steps from an excellent bookstore! The kind of bookstore that if it was in your neighbourhood, it would be a weekly habit, as long as the money held out. I decided it was an excellent bookstore because though small, the shelves were packed with books I'd read and enjoyed and some that were on my To Be Read list. I guessed that many of the books on the shelf I hadn't read or wanted to read would also be books I would enjoy. To cement its addition to the list of independent bookstores worth supporting, there was not a single giftware item available - no candles, no table decorations, no fragrances, no stuffed animals of the kind now found crowding out the books in Chapters/Indigo. Just books.
This got me to thinking of other bookstore/bakery combinations that are worth going out of your way to visit. In Duncan, the bakery is called the Westfalian Bakery Cafe and the Volume One Bookstore is a few doors down, where it has been for more than 50 years. A 20 minute refreshment break turned into an hour of pure pleasure (there was an art supply store nearby for good measure, causing Janet to skip the bookstore).
The second combination that comes to mind is Tanner's Books and the Sidney Bakery, both on Beacon Street in Sidney, B.C.. Tanner's is a bigger store, well stocked and curated, and the Sidney Bakery, within a couple of blocks' walk, is so popular that a lineup is a certainty, the only question is how long and whether the lineup goes out the door, or not. No cafe here, but a bakery of the highest quality. Either one of these places is worth a trip out from Victoria. Together, they are unbeatable.
I will give an honourable mention to Mermaid Tales Bookshop and the Common Loaf in Tofino. Mermaid Tales Bookshop is tiny by bookstore standards, but I have never failed to find a book I've been looking for in the 30 years or so we've been coming here. Each time I am amazed it is still open. The Common Loaf has just the sort of hippie/surfer dude vibe you find in Tofino, with all the vegan and gluten-free options you could want, plus classic breads and pastries. In the busy summer times both stores are very busy, less so in the off season.
Since all of these suggestions are located on Vancouver Island, I will mention one other notable combination: The LaHave Bakery and LaHave River Bookstore. These two stores are side-by-side in LaHave, Nova Scotia, just at the landing of the ferry to Lunenberg. The bakery has been in that location for 130 years, and you will get a sense of its history immediately on entering. The bookstore is much newer (it opened after we last visited Nova Scotia), but the bakery is so iconic, so memorable, that it automatically made my list of bakery/bookstore destinations. Even if the bookstore is less impressive, it is still worth the stop.
Regrettably there are no entries in this list from Edmonton or Calgary, both suffering from a severe lack of independent bookstores. Victoria has 3 great independent bookstores, Munro's, Russell Books and Bolen Books, but only Munro's makes a case for inclusion on the list, being next door to Murchie's Tea & Coffee. Murchie's isn't strictly speaking a bakery, but it does serve exceptional pastries (and tea). So it made this list, just.
I know that bookstores are more typically aligned with coffee shops, but IMHO (see how I slipped that cool acronym in?) going home with a good sourdough and a sought-after book makes the day nearly perfect.
