Book Stores
Steveston bookshop and cafe in one room, stocking mostly secondhand titles with some new releases. You can trade in your own books for store credit, and the espresso bar means people settle in rather than browse and leave. Separate kids' and adult sections.
Nine or ten days of unbroken rain is a normal Richmond stretch, and the question of where to sit indoors becomes genuinely pressing. A bookshop with an espresso bar in the same room is one of the better answers available in Steveston.
Secondhand stock is what makes a shop like this work. The inventory is never the same twice, which turns browsing into a habit rather than a purchase, and the coffee side turns browsing into sitting. Families tend to split up for twenty minutes and reconvene, everybody holding something different.
First Avenue runs a block off the main stretch of Moncton Street, close enough to the shops and the waterfront that a stop here folds neatly into a walk down to the dock. The village has lost a lot of its ordinary retail over the past twenty years to businesses aimed at summer visitors, so a bookshop surviving on residents is worth paying attention to.
Steveston in February is a completely different place from Steveston in July. Quieter, wetter, considerably better, and this is a February kind of business. The summer version of the village is pleasant enough, but it belongs to people who drove in for the afternoon, and the shops that make it through the other nine months are the ones giving the place its character.
Bring the books you have finished with. That is the part most people forget, and it changes the economics of the visit entirely.
In the Steveston neighbourhood of Richmond.
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Other book stores and nearby businesses in the Richmond directory.
Small independent bookshop in the middle of Steveston Village selling new and used titles, with a genuine specialty in British Columbia history, local maritime subjects and regional writing. Worth a browse if you are researching the fishing village's past.
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Chinese-language bookshop on the upper level of Aberdeen Centre, carrying traditional-character titles alongside stationery and magazines. One of the few places in Metro Vancouver to browse a serious Chinese book selection in person.
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A small florist counter operating inside a larger balloon and party shop on First Avenue in Steveston. Useful for a last-minute bouquet or a flowers-plus-balloons combination for a birthday, though it keeps short afternoon hours.
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Family-run Punjabi kitchen that outgrew its small Moncton Street takeout counter and moved into a larger Bayview dining room. A dozen curries, biryani, Indo-Chinese dishes and vegetarian platters, open daily from late morning until nine.
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French-leaning cafe set just off No. 1 Road at the quiet edge of Steveston Village, doing savoury and sweet crepes, sandwiches and proper coffee. A calmer option when the Moncton Street cafes fill up with weekend visitors.
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Steveston practice led by Dr. James Cadigan, mixing everyday dentistry with cosmetic work such as veneers, whitening and invisible braces. Also offers sedation, laser treatment and TMJ care for jaw pain that other offices refer elsewhere.
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