Come savor an appetizing meal at Renaissance Ventures. Come relax on their terrace beneath the sun. They happily feature wheelchair-accessible cafe terrace and are open after-hours all week. Payments by MasterCard, American Express and Visa are accepted.
What does a 7-Eleven store manager with big dreams do when he’s ready for a new challenge? He opens a boutique coffee shop on top of a mountain, of course. That coffee shop is Renaissance Coffee and that mountain is Burnaby Mountain, where Parminder Parhar has been passionately serving coffee to Simon Fraser University students, faculty and staff since he opened his first coffee stand with his wife back in 1996, after the University granted them a six-month trial period.
That trial gave the duo time to develop relationships with students, and hook them onto their excellent fair trade coffee, offered in a variety of flavours — mocha java, hazelnut, vanilla — in self-serve dispensers. The coffee, along with baked goods brought in from a “very excellent bakery in North Vancouver,” according to Parminder, were a godsend at a time when there were few food and coffee options on campus.
