Thank you beautiful Bowen Island and all your beautiful people.
The Rutiglianos (Gino and Victoria) from Bowen Coffee Store (Bowen Island Roasting Co.) and Bowen iWine uBrew, located at 104-105 996 Dorman Rd., would like to send a big thank you to Bowen Island for all your support over the last 10 years at this location.
We opened the doors Sept. 1, 2006, as The Happy Isle Cafe and Bowen Island Roasting Co. (previously The Happy Italian Deli, Dessert, Coffee House when we were located across the street in the Bowen Pub building from 2002 to 2006).
In 2008, we expanded to include a 50-seat dining room with a stage and full liquor license currently in the space where the Beer and Wine Cellar is located. Back then we offered full dinner service and live jazz every Friday night hosted by Tuen Schut.
This continued to expand, offering more music nights featuring local cover bands, throw-together music nights, reggae nights and open mic nights. We had some very special magical evenings like the New York New Year’s Eve, with a packed dance floor, house-made Italian-style pizza and pasta, wine and music flowing, everybody having a good time. Ahhh, those were the days, the good times, and with all good times, they eventually come to an end. It was the prefect storm: the introduction of the HST, the new liquor laws followed by the economic recession.
In 2010, the Bowen Coffee retail store was born offering everything coffee and tea. We enjoyed a compact business with roastery beside for the next couple of years until the re-development of the Village Square required us to relocate the roaster to a mid-island location. Last year, we opened the Bowen iWine uBrew where the roaster was located. Soon after, we were approached by Rondy Dike about the new building at the USSC location and, as they say, the rest is history.
We have now passed the torch of the ubrew and the cafe location to the new owners: Jay, of JP Gallery and Simon, of Raven Tails, and we wish them the very best of success in their new joint venture.
We want to give special thanks to Wolfgang Duntz and his team for his amazing advice and help over the years, the Bellringers for their support and especially to Rondy and Dorothy Dike for building us the best roastery we could have ever imagined. And an extra thanks to you, our customers! We would not exist without you.
Come and find us in the new, beautifully built building at the bottom of the Cove. The Bowen Coffee Hut is located and connected to the new home of the Bowen Island Roasting Co. suites 101 and 102 at 431 Bowen Island Trunk Rd. We will be offering a customer appreciation day on Oct. 9 at 2 p.m. in conjunction with the ribbon cutting ceremony of the Garden Gateway Project. Please join us in celebrating our new opening of the Bowen Coffee Hut and Roastery. We will be featuring baked goods delivered fresh in the mornings from Artisan Eats, MoeMakes, Siegel’s Bagels, in-house mini doughnuts, sandwiches and much, much more.
