Vancouver's Best Food Tours

Why Our Vancouver Donut Tour Ends at a Clock That Whistles

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Locals call it Raincouver, mostly with affection. We planned around it. Every stop on this donut tour is a warm, dry place to sit down with coffee, and the walk between them adds up to about two and a half kilometres of city strolling from downtown into Gastown.

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West Georgia, then downhill

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We begin at Thurlow and West Georgia, inside 49th Parallel Café & Lucky's Doughnuts. Coffee roasting and donut frying under one roof is a very Vancouver arrangement. After the first round, your guide leads the group down through the downtown core toward the water. It's the longest stretch of the walk, which makes it the right moment for the backstory: how a sawmill settlement on Burrard Inlet turned into a city of glass towers.

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Neate Donuts is next, known for inventive flavors. On weekends the stop moves inside the Marine Building, and honestly that alone is worth getting up for. The Art Deco lobby is all brass, stained glass and carved sea creatures, and people stand in it with their mouths open. Then east along the edge of downtown, with the North Shore mountains showing up between buildings, to a cozy coffee stop and a classic vanilla glazed.

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Gassy Jack and the steam clock

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The last leg crosses into Gastown, cobblestones and all, the neighborhood where Vancouver began. Your guide tells you about "Gassy" Jack Deighton, a saloon keeper who talked so much the whole district ended up named after him. Then the walking tour wraps up near the steam clock, ideally just as it whistles the quarter hour. We do try to time it.

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Flavors here are West Coast through and through. Look for London Fog, the Earl Grey latte Vancouver claims as its own, done up as a donut. Passion fruit and salted caramel pecan turn up too, and pumpkin cheesecake once autumn arrives. On a morning food tour, all of that tends to cover breakfast and lunch at the same time.

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The Vancouver Downtown and Gastown Donut Tour takes about two hours. Bring a jacket. You probably already knew that.