Hyper-Specific City Guide: What to Do With Your Crunchy-Granola Roommate Who Brings Their Dog Everywhere in Vancouver

This is part of our Ultimate, Hyper-Specific Vancouver City Guide, featured in the May 2024 issue of Vancouver magazine. We’ve created 25 unique personas and 25 unique itineraries to match. If this to-do list for ‘crunchy granola roomie’ isn’t helpful, perhaps one of the other 24 bespoke schedules will be. Explore them all here. 

All dogs are morning people, so you’ll kick the day off with an energy-burning stroll through Trout Lake Park… but not before grabbing a chai latte (with plant-based milk, of course) and a couple of peanut butter date balls ($4 each) at the nearby Commercial St. Cafe (3599 Commercial St., commercialstreetcafe.com).

At the north end of the lake is the off-leash dog park—it’s not fenced, but given your roomie’s annoying dog-whisperer-esque connection with their pup, that shouldn’t be a problem. From there, it’s a 10-minute drive to Main Street, where both human and canine refilleries are in order. Top up your roomie’s jars of almond flour and organic tri-colour quinoa at the Soap Dispensary and Kitchen Staples (3718 Main St., thesoapdispensary.com). And fine, they’ll buy that weird natural deodorant that comes in a paste, too… pick your battles. Just across the street, visit Good Boy Collective, where they sell dog food in bulk (3633 Main St., shopgoodboy.com)—keep those jars labelled, for the love of god—as well as adorable rain jackets and pizza box-shaped dog toys.

To the north there’s Uncle Abe’s (3032 Main St., narrowgroup.ca), the east-side bar with a dog-friendly cocktail menu. Served on the patio, the $4 cups include all-natural ingredients like coconut milk and blueberries—alcohol-free, obviously, so the dog can drive after you’ve polished off a 5-oz pitcher of Moscow mule ($28). For growling stomachs, there’s Mitra Shawarma (3034 Main St., narrowgroup.ca), the sister restaurant next door serving takeaway donair nachos ($12) and shawarma fries ($10). For growling dogs, you’ll have to talk to the bouncer.

More from the Ultimate, Hyper-Specific Vancouver City Guide here.