Bear Witness

A perfect day, and I’ve had them before, almost always contains a visit to Baked Café.  Some days I just come to sit on the black couches and look out the windows at Whitehorse going by.  Sometimes I bring a book to read.  Sometimes I plan official meetings there.  Other times I arrange to meet my friends.  Often, I run into them there unexpectedly.  Baked Café is a community hub, so naturally it’s a great venue for meeting.  There’s a lot of ambience in the wide room, and a lot of ambient noise so that you can speak frankly without being overheard.  Music on the radio.  People standing around talking.  It’s comfortable, and often crowded, but not in a jam-packed way, but more like having your best friends all over at your place, happy.  It’s probably the largest coffeeshop that Whitehorse has.

At the corner of First and Main, Baked Café serves a large range of specialty coffees and teas, cold drinks, as well as a wide repetoire of scones and pastries.  You cannot pass up a scone that is bigger than your hand.  It is a meal.  Cranberry Coconut, Cranberry Chocolate Chip, Blueberry Almond or Raspberry Walnut–they each come in three kinds: white, wheat and spelt.  Awesome soups–my favorites are any of their hearty chowders and their Tomato Basil with or without chicken.  They also serve sandwiches, beef pies, quiches, wraps, salads, cookies, and in the summer, several flavors of gelato. There is something for everyone.  It is a hot tourist spot in the summer, and just a hop away from the Whitehorse Trolley across the street.  Kids love it.  And it’s close to everything on Main Street–a place to begin your perfect day of shopping and touring around.  It’s a block away from the Museum, down the street from the Westmark, next to the river and the Whitepass Yukon Railway building.

Let me tell you a few of my favorite things to have here:  the beef pie is my new best friend.  With a flaky top crust, and a solid bottom, the pie contains carrots and beef cooked in Yukon Brewery’s Espresso Stout until the taste enriches and envelops the beef.  It’s warm beef and carrrot welcome is what it is.

I have a Hazelnut Latté when I come and a cranberry coconut scone, white, heated up.  I like the veggie quiche, but I often get one with meat in it.  Just cuz.  With the beef pie, I like the Santa Cruz Orange/mango drink.  Now, afterhours, Baked Cafe is experimenting with the candlelight and the eclectic lounge atmosphere.  You can have a glass of wine, a coffee drink with Bailey’s.  It’s nice. Here I am reading A Very Short Introduction to the Reformation, looking pleased.  You can’t see the remnants of my latté or my soup…but they are there.  On this day, I had the perfect day.  I came to read for an hour, then met two friends and talked, had a great meal and great coffee.  I went back home and wrote a story around the Reformation.  (I think I’m going to add a coffeehouse like this into it.)

On frozen days, the café provides shelter and warmth from the cold.  In the summer, the tables set outside with the iconic light green umbrellas are filled to overflowing and allow you to still be part of the city while you have your coffee.

Baked Café is part of the community–in some ways, it is the community, just like all the coffeeshops of the Yukon.   This particular community contains a monkey barrel of awesome, creative people.  Their artwork is on the walls.  They are writing their novels, planning their CD launches, chatting about creative things, reading poetry out loud at Brave New Words some Monday nights.  The energy in the room is high–and ideas are flying everywhere, even while people are sinking down into comfy couches and drinking big wide cups of coffee.

Come find out how Baked Café can be part of your perfect day plans in Whitehorse.   Meet us at First and Main.

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Baked Cafe is owned and operated by architects!  Kobayashi + Zedda Architects Ltd.