Anyone in, or passing through, Cache Creek who wants a jolt of java (or a tot of tea) can now get their caffeine fix at Junctions Coffee House, located on the ground floor of the Castle Hotel building.
The business, which opened in May this year, represents the culmination of a long-time dream for owners Darren Beeds and Jenn Buis, who live in Clinton. Beeds had worked at Chasm Mill for 32 years, and says that he enjoyed the job until recently, when a new management team helped him make the decision to retire and start a coffee house.
“I’m closer to 50 than 40, and worked there most of my life,” Beeds says, adding that if the mill closed, what would a heavy equipment operator of his age do? “I’d had enough, and didn’t want to do it anymore. And I always wanted to be my own boss.”
He and Buis had contemplated starting a coffee house in Clinton; then David Park opened one. “We waited too long, so we looked at Cache Creek, which didn’t have one. We looked at a few premises, like the building at Quartz and Stage Roads, but it’s not on the highway. We also looked at the Super Save Gas building, but the current occupants have a 10-year lease [the building is being used by Old Dutch as a transfer station].
“The lack of options almost made us give up after Super Save, because the site at the Castle wasn’t our first choice. We worried that people would say ‘Oh, the Castle, we’re not going in there.’ But we kept coming back to it. The new owner seems good, and is renovating the front, and now people aren’t saying that.”
They had originally planned to open in February 2018, but Beeds says that the wildfires prevented him from getting down to negotiate the lease agreement. Once that was done, he spent several months working full shifts at Chasm, then coming down to Cache Creek to completely renovate the interior. “It was full of fridges and stoves and flooring, and was really ugly. I wish I’d taken some pictures of what it looked like.
“I’m a self-taught carpenter, and I’ve always had an interest in it. And I got better and better.”
The finished interior is now warm and welcoming, seating 10 people inside, with a couple of tables outside. When asked why they decided to open a coffee house, Beeds says “I like the coffee shop scene. And what do people need on a daily basis? Lots of people like coffee.”
He and Buis went to a Barista Academy in Burnaby, where they got their level one, two, and three barista training. Beeds then took a three-day course in opening a coffee shop (Buis continues to work full-time in management at Chasm Mill). While the training taught them a lot about being baristas and running a coffee house, Beeds says that a lot of their recipes have come from YouTube: “It’s amazing what you can find there.”
He notes that the coffee scene in the Interior is different to the one on the coast. “Cappuccinos and espressos are popular there, but here it’s mostly flavoured drinks. The people who ask us for espresso shots are mostly European tourists.”
Junctions is keeping things simple for now, offering a full range of hot and cold coffee and tea drinks and a few home-baked goods such as banana and lemon bread, brownies, muffins, and old-fashioned oatmeal cookies that they can’t bake enough of. “We’re getting a lot of requests for sandwiches, which we hope to start doing soon, and when it gets colder we hope to start doing soup as well.”
They also plan to put up more signage, both on the building and alongside the roads leading into Cache Creek, so that people passing through notice the coffee house. “The speed limit [on Highway 1 through town] is 50km, but people drive by at 70 or 80.”
Beeds says they’ve had a lot of compliments about their coffee from Pallet Roasters, which last year was voted the number one roaster in Vancouver. “We wanted to be different, and we made the right choice.” He adds that the reaction from locals has been fantastic.
“We’ve had nothing but good words. People say ‘Great to see you here.’ We thought that most of the business would be highway traffic, but it’s been half [highway] and half [locals]. We’re exceeding the expectations in our business plan.”
Junctions Coffee House is open 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday (it closes at 3 p.m. on Wednesday), and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
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