Some things are better together; milk and cereal for instance, or a warm bowl of soup on a cold rain-soaked day, and perhaps coffee and doughnuts?

I’m not exactly a doughnut person but I’ve been meaning to check out 49th Parallel and their doughnut venture, Lucky’s Doughnuts ever since I heard about it – I finally did a few weeks back.

What makes this shop fascinating is that it isn’t just a doughnut shop that has coffee, or a coffee shop with a few doughnuts on the side.

No, it’s a doughnut and coffee shop; the doughnuts are made on site from scratch, and as coffee roasters, coffee is what 49th Parallel does.

The Kitsilano location is cute and rustic with lots of light, charmingly done in pale blue walls and giant glass windows – stone countertops, marble tables with metal and wood seating complete the decor which goes with the adorable blue tableware used in the shop.

The aroma of coffee and sweet sugary doughnuts is intoxicating, definitely has that ‘doughnut shop smell’ and even a non-doughnut person like myself could not resist the tempting assortment of doughnuts so beautifully displayed.

It’s a busy spot, seating was a little hard to secure, but worth the relaxed vibes when we ultimately did.

Our coffees were well made and delicious, I had the almond milk mocha – the almond milk, I was gallantly told is also made in house.

The caramel topping on my old fashioned salted caramel doughnut was a little hard but the doughnut had a nice cakey texture.
More reason to go back and try other varieties, I thought.

I’ve always liked 49th Parallel coffee, they are renowned coffee roasters with a historied coffee past in Vancouver – this venture doesn’t take away from that, it just infuses a little variance into the coffee culture in the city.

Named for the circle of latitude 49 degrees north of the equator, part of which serves as an international boundary between Canada and the US, 49th Parallel supply beans to coffee shops and retailers all over North America, they’ve been roasting coffee since 2004.