Sutori - Stories Tagged With 'vancouver'

Cobs bread makes every day delicious

Thu, 10 Aug 2006 15:27:30 -0700

If Cobs has come to your town, I'm probably preaching to the converted here. If not, let me explain.

First, a little history. Cobs Bread is a chain of bakeries that create really delicious versions of really basic day-to-day bread products. And sell them for really good prices. They are all over the Greater Vancouver area, with new ones opening all the time.

They are actually a Canadian-ized version of a chain that’s all over Australia and New Zealand called Baker’s Delight.

Before Cobs came along, I would buy most of my day-to-day breads at the supermarket. Nothing fancy. I’m talking about the pre-sliced stuff you make sandwiches with. Hamburger and hot dog buns during the summer months. That sort of thing.

If it was a special occasion, I would maybe go to one of the specialty bakeries in town and pick up something a little special.

But mostly it was the stuff I grabbed at the Safeway. This was always a very hit and miss proposition. It involved shifting through loaf after loaf squeezing and checking best-before dates. I was always changing brands in pursuit of the perfect loaf.

I was never satisfied. I usually ended up throwing half a loaf out at the end of the week.

Then along came Cobs.

Unlike those special occasion bakeries I used to visit--and still do on occasion--Cobs is all about the basics. They take the sliced supermarket loaf and turn it into something fresh-baked and mouth-wateringly tasty. And they charge LESS than the supermarket.

Genius, I tell you. Genius.

And to top it off, they're always located right across the street from giant supermarkets to make it nice and easy to add them on as a postscript to your weekly shop.

The do this thing called a “country grain flour loaf” that I never get tired of eating. I’m salivating just thinking about it. And their hot dog buns . . . damn!

The only drawback, if you can call it a drawback, is that they don’t use preservatives so the loaves don’t last long.

But we usually eat the whole thing before it has a chance to go bad.

Best Coffee in Vancouver

Thu, 14 Sep 2006 16:10:26 -0700

Bar none, the best place to get yourself a good espresso, latte, or cappucino has to be Continental Coffee on Commercial Drive (corner of 2nd Ave). You can also buy your beans by the pound. I load up on a couple pounds of the Continental Blend whenever I am in the area. Its funny that there is a Starschmucks right across the street. I suspect they keep that store open just to show their corporate logo, as it has to be one of the emptiest coffee shops I have ever seen.

Friendly no-fee banking

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 11:21:46 -0700

My first bank account was a VanCity Fat Cat account back in the '80s, and I continued to bank there until just a few years ago when PC Financial and ING began leading the no-fee banking movement. I liked the way VanCity marketed itself, but I found the actual experience of banking there less than satisfactory.

Today I'm with Coast Capital Savings, whose marketing is easily as good as VanCity's and whose policies and customer service are infinitely better. I pay no fees to access my money, and for the first time I actually like going into the bank. I don't know if their business banking is as good, but I've been very impressed with their personal banking.

VanCity, Why Do You Spite Me So?

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 10:36:15 -0700

A few months ago, we moved our business accounts over from the Royal Bank to VanCity. We had lousy customer service from the Royal, and had received several recommendations for VanCity. Also, they've got all kinds of feel-good projects on the go, and made me sign something that said I wouldn't use their business banking services to sell plutonium. What more could you ask for?

In our initial meeting with VanCity, we clearly articulated a particular requirement we had regarding international wire transfers. We receive three to five of these each month. We wanted to be notified with email or snail mail describing the particular details of each transaction. This had been one of many pain points at the Royal Bank, but the Royal eventually agreed to send us a notification in the mail each time a transfer came in.

We were very specific about this requirement, and our 'Financial Services Officer' at VanCity confirmed that they would be able to replicate this process.

The VanCity representative made an error. As it turns out, VanCity can only offer this service at a rate of $25 per transaction. That works out to about $1000 a year in fees. Nice.

They only notified us of this error after we had:

Opened an account with them
Advised our clients of our new banking details
Banked with them for a few months
Received several wire transfers

Everybody makes mistakes. This mistake, unfortunately, will force us to change banks yet again and to suffer all the pain that entails. This mistake comes in the first three months of banking with an institution that prides itself on customer service. This mistake is the reason I pay service fees. So that mistakes like this don't happen.

In short, VanCity screwed up once, but they screwed up big time. To their credit, they did apologize profusely and reverse all the service fees we incurred during our brief time with them.

Pinch Me, I'm Pleasantly Pierced

Thu, 28 Sep 2006 18:48:04 -0700

The first time I got my nose pierced about 10 years ago, the gun got stuck. I had it done at a cheesy salon on Commercial Drive; the so-called piercer (really I think he washed hair) had no idea what he was doing, nor the courage to speak above a whisper when trying to get the attention of the woman who ran the place, who happened to be with a client. I sat there in surreal dismay, a piercing gun in my nose, staring up at the nervously-grinning 20-something who was keeping the gun positioned next to my head so as not to rip through my nostril, waiting for the manager to notice the oh-so-inaudible, "Um, Maria? Could you maybe come over here for a sec?" Thankfully, she finally realized what was going on and resentfully grabbed the instrument and detached it from my face. (I eventually let the piercing grow over, having discovered I'm pretty much allergic to anything but gold and being traumatized by the whole event.)

According to the lovely Ben, the honest-to-goodness- real-life-professional-piercer at Adrenaline who did my nose ring last Saturday, this sort of thing happens all the time. Nose piercing via gun can go terribly wrong, causing disfigurement and sometimes requiring reconstructive surgery.

So, Adrenaline does it the old-fashioned way: with a needle. And in all other ways, they seem to be true professionals in the world of piercings and tattoos.

I walked into Adrenaline on 4th Ave in Kits (there's also one downtown) last weekend and was immediately impressed with the service. The shop was packed, but the girl at the front desk made sure to greet me right away. She was super helpful and after selecting my (real gold!) nose ring, I told her I'd be back in 20 minutes as there was a bit of a wait for walk-ins.

When I returned, I was again made to feel welcome. While I've never found tattoo parlours to be outright surly, their service is often nonchalantly friendly at best. Adrenaline really seems as if they really care about their customers, whether you're hard-core and tattoo-covered or not (I'm not).

I was kind of nervous about getting my nose done. I knew they were going to use a needle, and I imagined that had to hurt way more than a gun. I sort of had this idea that using a needle would be more traumatic to my nose and I'd be all puffed up and sore and freakish-looking. So I was a bit of a chicken, and therefore so grateful that Ben, who did my piercing, turned out to be super friendly, obviously knew what he was doing (it honestly hardly hurt) and meticulous about cleanliness.

And this place is CLEAN. I mean, you kind of assume/expect/hope an establishment of this sort will be clean, but it really was spotless. And both Ben and the girl who helped me initially and then rang me up at the til were manic about sanitation--when the girl noticed my nose had a teeny bit of blood on it, she rushed me back into the room, put on a pair of gloves, took a q-tip out of its individual vacuum-sealed pack and dabbed at my nose ever so gently.

Despite my initial reaction to seeing a tattoo shop in Kits ("Why the heck would try to open a tattoo parlour in Kits? They must totally not get it.") I was super impressed with Adrenaline, where I was treated like a real person and ended up with a very pretty little diamond-shaped stud in my nose, as opposed to a gun.

North Shore Credit Union giving away $1M dollars

Wed, 18 Oct 2006 11:18:37 -0700

North Shore Credit Union (www.nscu.com) is giving a $1 million gift to a worthy non-profit organization in spring 2007 to a charity for a major project that supports the physical, environmental or financial wellness of one of the local communities the credit union serves - the North Shore, downtown Vancouver, Burnaby, Squamish, Whistler or Pemberton. This is just part of NSCU's committment to corporate giving and community support which also includes it's committment to give 1% of pre-tax profits as an Imagine company (www.imagine.com).

If you work, volunteer or know of a organization that fits the criteria or would be interested, they can find more information at www.nscu.com/onemillion

Disclosure: I work for North Shore Credit Union but want to make more aware of their efforts. As an employee and member of the credit union I think this is great.

North Shore Credit Union giving away $1M dollars

Wed, 18 Oct 2006 11:18:37 -0700

If you work, volunteer or know of a organization that fits the criteria or would be interested, they can find more information at www.nscu.com/onemillion

Disclosure: I work for North Shore Credit Union but want to make more aware of their efforts. As an employee and member of the credit union I think this is great.

Bears ate my food!

Wed, 29 Nov 2006 19:45:53 -0800

We've been happily receiving a bi-weekly organics box from organicsathome for about three years now. Because our house has a carport rather than a garage, there is no good place to leave the box of fruit and veg, except on a counter in the carport.

Last week, we got home to find the contents of the box strewn all over the garage, with some pieces showing noticeable bear-sized bite marks.

Wanting to report the ursine activity, we called up organicsathome to find out what time they delivered the box (it turns out, the box had been there for less than two hours). They exclaimed that this had never happened before, noted that we had been with them a long time and offered to replace the box on their next trip.

I had been frustrated with the choice of local product in their offering, and was considering switching. However, this awesome example of customer service has kept me a happy customer, and I've stopped looking at their competitor's website for now.

All the car I'll ever need!

Wed, 21 Mar 2007 21:33:54 -0800

I absolutely love car sharing, and there's no better car sharing co-op in the country than Vancouver's own Co-operative Auto Network.

They have around 150 cars of all types around Vancouver, the North Shore, and 6 other cities, an online booking system, a partnership with the Victoria Car Co-op, and a rate plan that can't be beat.

There are more than three cars within a 5 minute walk from my front door. In my neighborhood alone I have cars, vans, and trucks to choose from, depending on the nature of my errand.

Each time I drive I get to see the whole-system cost of my trip; my hourly and per-kilometer charge includes gas, insurance, usage, depreciation, and maintenance! I need only multiply the number of hours and the number of kilometers I drive by the hourly and per-kilometer charge to know how much that trip to the Home Depot actually costs.

There are perks galore… great rental rates at Discount, Thrifty/Dollar, and Enterprise for long-term trips, no hourly charge after 11pm, and free permit parking.

Hey, if you decide to become a member yourself, be sure to tell them I sent you ;-)

http://www.cooperativeauto.net/
http://www.thecompanycar.ca/

The Peak of Mismanagement

Wed, 21 Mar 2007 21:05:31 -0800

My partner and I had a most frustrating day at Grouse Mountain due in large part to a staffing shortfall. I faxed this letter to them shortly after our visit and received no response. I then mailed the letter to them, registered mail, and still no response at all! Might as well post it here so that it actually gets read:

---

January 20, 2007

To whom it may concern,

This letter concerns the events of January 14th, 2007 – a collection of customer service disasters which added up to a most unsatisfactory visit to Grouse mountain.

[My partner] and I are passholders at Grouse, and brought with us four friends for a day of skiing and snowshoeing at the “peak of Vancouver.” We arrived in the morning and, after a quick wait in line, were on top of the mountain by 10 am.

Considering the sunny weather, and the fact that it was a weekend, we were prepared for crowds and long lines. What we experienced on Grouse constituted more than a volume-related slowdown, it was a complete and total breakdown of the customer experience due to the mismanagement of your facilities and personnel.

[My partner] and I arrived in line at the rental chalet shortly after 10 am. I was absolutely amazed at the lack of sophistication of that facility. Traffic flow was so poorly designed that the people lining up for credit card pre-authorization completely blocked those trying to reach boots that had been prepared for them as part of an Internet pre-order. I thought it quaint, in this electronic age, that you were taking carbon copies of customers’ credit cards on pieces of paper – ones that you forced them to return to the chalet to claim at the end of their day. There was so little space in the chalet in general – people were squeezing by people in multiple directions due to a complete lack of thought to the layout of the rental stations, there was equipment all over the floor, there were people standing in line on the stairs while other people ascended and descended, and the lockers that you provide are so old that you still need coins to be able to operate them.

The sum of these inefficiencies, coupled with Grouse’s complete mismanagement of their staffing challenge, led to a wait time of 3 hours from the arrival at the rental chalet at 10 am, to the departure at 1pm with skiis, boots, and poles in hand.

[My partner] and I were able to do 2 runs of Cut, waiting around 30-45 minutes at the end of each run for a seat on the
Screaming Eagle, before we were too hungry to continue and had to check in for lunch. That’s almost 5 hours for a ski rental and 2 green runs after having arrived at the rental chalet!

Upon having returned to the rental chalet to return our rental gear, we discovered an almost unbelievable sight; a gagle of people still waiting in line for skiis and snowboards, with nobody working the counter! The customers were outraged, and the poor staff working the cash had to make excuses for the failure of your staffing plan.

I expect to be compensated for the poor experience that [my partner] and I had on Grouse this day, and would be interested to hear Grouse’s plans with respect to better managing your winter offering in the future so that this kind of day doesn’t happen again.

Thank you for your attention,

{Signed}