BC Business
Lukes General Store | BCBusiness
The scent of freshly ground beans emanating from the coffee counter inside Lukes General Store in Vancouver’s Chinatown Space Lab competes with potent smells from other products—such as $13 ginger mint toothpaste—lining the adjacent brick wall. The curious drugstore/coffee shop was launched by Calgary-based entrepreneur Gareth Lukes, who took a piece of his family’s eclectic pharmacy (Lukes Drug Mart) and brought it to the West Coast.
The shop peddles personal care products, but the coffee bar—serving Portland-based Stumptown Coffee Roasters beans—is the centrepiece of the space. “What we wanted to do is duplicate the experience you would get of going to one of [Stumptown’s] cafés,” says Lukes, adding that he’s trying to cultivate an approachable vibe, not wanting to alienate anybody with pretentious coffee culture.
The pop-up shop will remain in Chinatown indefinitely, but Lukes says he’s considering something longer-term. “We’d like to do something permanent—we’re kind of contemplating what that necessarily would be,” he says. “I may want to do a pharmacy out here, but I’m still on the fence about that.” (lukesgeneralstore.ca)