Noct Coffee Turns the Lights On in Vancouver B.C.

Inside the new Noct Coffee bar in Vancouver, British Columbia. All images by Kado Wicaksana (@kado.avo), courtesy of Noct Coffee.

For Canadian roasting company Noct Coffee, the leap from fleeting pop-ups to a permanent home in Vancouver, B.C., has been like night and day. 

“Noct started as a passion project just out of my love for specialty coffee and roasting. I couldn’t have imagined what I set out to do growing to the size it has,” Noct Coffee Founder Kevin Vo told Daily Coffee News.

Taking over the longtime Riley Park home of Matchstick Coffee, the new Noct shop uses its serene white walls with dark accents to echo the vibrant flavors and contrasts found in the cups. Beyond coffee, the new location places equal emphasis on service, with workers earning a living wage and not relying on tips.

“Their wages should be handled by the company, not by our customers,” Vo said. “I believe that caring for and rewarding employees for their hard work builds a culture where people feel valued and want to stay and develop.”

In a nook behind the bar, Noct runs a Stronghold S7X roaster and two Nucleus Link sample roasters. Larger batches for the cafe, online sales and wholesale accounts are roasted on a Diedrich IR-12 at Vancouver co-roastery Coffee Roasting Central.

In green coffee buying, Vo said the company keeps an eye toward transparency, traceability and responsible pricing through importers such as Common Goal Coffee, Forward Coffee, Macarena Cafe and Torrefaction Quebec.

“I also relay that to the customer as part of the coffee we sell,” Vo said. “We post everything from the origin to even what we paid per kilogram and where we bought it from on our website at the bottom of each product page.”

The cafe’s five employees are paid $27.25 CAD per hour, which Vo describes as a living wage, while full-time workers also receive health benefits. All workers get five paid days off, five sick days and vacation time. While menu prices reflect those priorities, the cafe also tries to stay competitive by trimming costs elsewhere.

“We do our best to handle costs by doing as much as we can internally or working with smaller local companies so that we can afford to charge fair prices, while paying my staff fair wages,” Vo said. “We rely on higher volume to perform well, but with the vision and goal, I believe we’ll be okay.”

Inside the 1,750-square-foot shop, baristas work with three Ceado grinders and a Zerno Z1 for espresso pulled on a 2-group Kees van der Westen Spirit machine. Pourovers are made on Hario Switch brewers with a Weber EG-1 grinder with Weber Ultra burrs.

The customer space remained familiar through the transition, with tall windows preserving the daylight and openness of the existing layout. Seating spans three zones: private booths, a long communal table and a corner area meant for socializing.

Retail shelves stocked with merch and coffees roasted on site are built into a long, dark wall that echoes the moody menu boards behind the bar.

“I wanted to keep the core feeling of openness and a comfortable, bright space as the language, while still bringing some of Noct’s darker and modern styling to the space,” Vo said. “The brand has always had a bit of a ‘street/high fashion’ vibe, so I continued by adding little modern planters and other design-forward elements.”

Vo founded Noct in late 2024 after several years of hobby roasting while running an artisan keycap business from home. After launching coffee sales online and through a handful of pop-ups and events, he said it quickly became clear that Noct needed a permanent space for its aficionado community to gather and grow alongside more casual coffee drinkers.

With the cafe now open, the only expansion on Vo’s radar is a dedicated roastery and event space for cuppings, workshops and other coffee-focused gatherings.

“I don’t have grand aspirations for growing Noct into some massive company that opens a bunch of cafes,” Vo said. “I want to keep my team small and focused on what we’re doing here. I think we have something special going and I want to preserve that feeling and culture.”

Noct Coffee is located at 4807 Main St. in Vancouver, B.C.

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