Cafés
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.
Summer in Steveston creates a specific problem, and it is arithmetic rather than quality. Moncton Street fills, the good tables go, and by eleven on a Saturday you are standing with a coffee looking for somewhere to put it down. Sitting at the quieter edge of the village, just off No. 1 Road, is the practical answer to that. Far enough from the main drag that the weekend crowd thins before it reaches the door.
The kitchen here leans French, which is unusual for Richmond generally and for Steveston in particular. A cafe that can serve both halves of a table, the person who wants an actual plate of food and the person who only wants something to drink, is more useful than it sounds. Most cafes quietly force a group to pick a side.
No. 1 Road is the spine of west Richmond, running from the dyke at the north end down through Seafair and Blundell and into the village. This end of it is where the residential grid meets the shops, and walking in from a few blocks away is realistic here in a way it is not across most of the city. Anyone visiting Steveston in July or August should note the address precisely because it is not on the postcard street. In high season that is the whole of its advantage. In February it is simply a quiet corner of a neighborhood that has gone back to itself.
In the Steveston neighbourhood of Richmond.
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