Synonymous with delicious cream puffs and a variety of other tempting delights, BETA5 Chocolates is certainly one of Vancouver’s favourite go-to places to help your sweet tooth. Now they are having a brand new store–BETA5 2.0–and you seriously need to check it out. It’s on 409 Industrial Ave, just next to their current retail space.
At the new BETA5 cafe, anticipate nothing less of a chocolate heaven. Once inside, you’ll notice an ultra-modern, L-shaped refrigerated countertop installation, displaying all BETA5 branded chocolates, desserts, and as of very soon also pastries.
Pick your flavours at the countertop, put them in a box of six or 12 pieces, head home, and have a blast. Or, you can just sit down, order a coffee with your preferred choice of sweet and immerse yourself in the locale’s stunning new interior.
Vancouver’s 49th Parallel Coffee Roaster has helped with the coffee on offer. They’ve created an exceptional mocha enticed with BETA5 chocolates. Besides mocha, you can opt for a cup of hot chocolate too, blended with the house’s very own custom-made 66% dark chocolate.
The interior is as beguiling as are the chocolates. BETA5 2.0 is a space that meticulously combines distinct elements of concrete, wood and steel with bright lights and abstract art, faithfully reflecting the brand’s influence from industrial landscapes and nature.
We are excited to welcome customers to our new space and continue to surprise and delight them with our unique flavour combinations. As with when BETA5 first opened, this is new territory for us. We will be fine-tuning as we go, and hope to welcome new and loyal BETA5 visitors in the coming weeks.
Adam Chandler, Co-Owner of BETA5.
Chandler first started BETA5 in 2011 along with his spouse, Jessica Rosinski. At the beginning it was just the two of them, and sometimes their chocolate shop would stay open only during one day of the week. However, Chandler’s perfected chocolate production combined with Rosinski’s talent for marketing, sales and concept innovation, did not go unnoticed among fellow Vancouverites.
In a matter of few years, BETA5 picked up so well that it nabbed a number of domestic and international awards for its chocolate, as well as an honoring designation that this is One of North America’s Top Ten Chocolatiers. No surprises as soon as you understand how the brand fuses the art and science behind chocolate.
Chandler is not only a co-owner of BETA5, but also its Pastry Chef and Chocolatier. His passion for chocolate has been there long before BETA5. He would obtain his education and training at Vancouver’s Northwest Culinary Academy and further hone his chocolate and pastry craft in France and Belgium, both countries world-renowned for their refined chocolate production.
These experiences have certainly helped Chandler develop his cunning touch to chocolate production, plus he has successfully embedded the science side of it in the business’ branding. As he explains in an earlier interview published at Noms Magazine, the brand’s very name has been derived from cocoa butter crystal structure.
Cocoa butter’s special fat, which is considered to be a polymorphic fat, can crystallize in a number of different forms. The most stable of all those forms and the one which gives chocolate its shine and snap when you crack it open–is called the 5 beta crystal structure.
But you probably don’t care too much about the science, do you? Check in at the new Beta cafe Tuesday through Friday, from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m for the weekend.
Their evolving chocolate and cream puffs menu is all yours to feast on. Cream puff flavours include strawberry milk tea, pavlova, and matcha sesame to name just three. Also in the making is a special holiday menu as well as the return of the popular BETA5 éclair. Feast on, and come back.