About
The first time I visited Seven Shores Market & Café was to get information to write this blog, but I can’t help but wish I visited sooner. I met with Steve, one of the café’s ten owners. As the café bustled, I could see Steve glancing around the room to make sure all of the customers were being accommodated.
Steve explained the long history between Seven Shores and Sustainable Waterloo Region, which I was unaware of when I contacted him about this blog post. SWR’s founder, Mike Morrice, used to frequent the café and Steve credits Mike as being an important part of his involvement with the café.
Seven Shores focuses on building community, nurturing relationships, and being as ethical as possible. They source locally as much as they can, which includes food such as cheese, vegetables, dairy products, and eggs. Recently they changed their fruit selection from pineapples and melons, which were sourced internationally, to apples, which they could buy locally for less money. Steve explained that they are in the process of figuring out how to create more seasonal dishes, so they can buy more fresh Ontario food instead of importing. It’s a learning process that they are excited to take on.
Last summer, they allowed young girls to grow and sell produce on their front yard, and in exchange the café was able to use some of the food, such as herbs, in their kitchen. They also have purchased produce from the Young City Growers, an initiative that employs local youth to cultivate an urban garden on Laurier’s Northdale Campus.
As well as having gift options, which I will get into shortly, this café is a great place to sit and work for those who are able to work remotely. I’m actually at Seven Shores as I write this blog. I also just gulped down a delicious eggnog latte. Sweet, creamy, caffeinated eggnog. Here are a couple potential gift ideas from Seven Shores Café.
Gift Ideas
Gift cards – Seven shores offers gift cards that would be great for the coffee lover in your life, the food lover, or the obsessively local person in your life. In fact, who doesn’t love at least one of those things? Maybe tea people, but they sell that here too.
Coffee – If you’re the type of person who shies away from gift cards, you can go straight for coffee. Seven Shores has bags of coffee that are available for purchase if you want to get right to the point. In the time it took me to write this blog I drank a latte and a regular coffee, and both were delicious.
Other Holiday Opportunities
The café features a community room, which can be rented out for small groups. If you’re interested, you can contact Julie at ‘sevenshorescafe@gmail.com’.
Contact
http://www.sevenshores.ca/FacebookTwitterInstagram