Just Another Coffee Shop Ironically Replacing Kitsilano’s Cartems

Cartems Donuts‘ West Broadway location shuttered its doors suddenly last month—I happened to go there with my mother and sister on February 20, the day before it closed forever. Little did I know that I was getting my last matcha donut (in this neighbourhood, at least—the Downtown and Mount Pleasant locations remain). I’ll never forget the time I ordered a dozen and the lovely fellow behind the counter gave me 15 because “they were a little small.” Bless him. I’ll also never forget all the times that I piled my roommates into my car and ripped out of UBC residence to get there before closing, only to find they had sold out. It’s the ones closest to you that can hurt you the most.

Anyway, Cartems is closed. Like any millennial raised in our donut-eat-donut world, I mourned for a moment and then wondered what would replace it. Probably just another coffee shop, right?

Exactly right. Literally, exactly right. I walked by the storefront yesterday and lo and behold, “Just Another Coffee Shop” is proudly plastered in the window. It is, presumably, an obnoxiously self-aware new cafe—and that’s not a dig; I’m hopeful that the sarcastic name hints at something cool.

It’s a funny name,  if not terribly SEO-friendly (an internet search mostly yields results from Just Another Coffee Shop, what looks to be a lovely little cafe in Switzerland). The new West Broadway spot—no relation to the Swiss, I presume—has a very new Instagram account with zero posts and, at the time of writing, 15 followers. Now 16. I’ve got my eye on you, Just Another Coffee Shop. I hope you make donuts.