Ducking below the bustling city on a cool winter night, plaza steps lead you to the warm glow of changing lights reflecting off the ice surface. The top pop hits of today pump from the venue’s speakers as you lace up, step onto the ice, and take your sweetie’s hand. Robson Square ice rink is perfect for date night in the city, family fun, or simply having a reason to smile, giggle, and take ever-so-many selfies with friends.

This free activity is one of the most popular in Vancouver at this time of year and they’re hosting a few more special events before the season wraps up at the end of February.

Skate Date Night at Robson Square Ice Rink

Every Tuesday night in January and February is Skate Date Night at Robson Square ice rink, from 5:00pm to 9:00pm. Longtime partners can glide together in unison, while new sweethearts can break the ice by showing off some moves – or learning to skate together. Hold hands during dreamy ballads, and snuggle up with a hot chocolate. For this night and regular skate nights, skating is free, rentals are $4.

Each Skate Date night, you can enter a draw to win Valentine’s Day dinner for two at Bacchus Restaurant located at the Wedgewood Hotel in downtown Vancouver. The prize draw will take place on Tuesday, February 9th, 2016.

Family Day at Robson Square Ice Rink

On Monday, February 8th, 2016, the Government of British Columbia’s Robson Square ice rink will be providing free skate rentals (9:00am to 9:00pm) and free hot chocolate (2:00pm to 8:00pm) to celebrate this year’s BC Family Day.

Vancouver has always been a coffee city. Nabob was founded in Gastown in 1896, coffee shops paired with news stands and bus stops throughout its history, and we had the first Starbucks outside of the USA. We also had the infamous corner of Starbucks and Starbucks at Thurlow and Robson, until recently.

With the rise of craft and artisanal businesses, we have a new coffee boom with independent shops making a comeback alongside local roasters.

Locally owned JJ Bean has 17 corporately owned stores, Caffe Artigiano owns 16, Blenz is a franchise with 60 stores in B.C., and Bean Around the World has 21 mostly licensed stores, to name some of the larger local leaders.

JJ Bean owner John Neate Jr., whose grandfather started Neate’s Coffee in Vancouver in 1945, ballparks Starbucks’ Lower Mainland store-count at 400 and growing. [Source: Bean Around The World/Vancouver Sun]

Taking a look through the Vancouver archives, photos of coffee shops depict fascinating urban scenes, and make me wonder whatever happened to the Star Weekly magazine empire?…

10 Vancouver Coffee Shop Photos from the Archives

1937. Tram News Stand and Coffee Shop illuminated at night in the BC Electric Building at 425 Carrall St. Photographer: James Crookall. Archives# CVA 260-778.

1933. Roof fire at the National Lunch Coffee Shop. Photographer: Stuart Thomson. Archives# CVA 99-2803.

1940s. Grandview Highway bus outside the Bus Stop Coffee Shop. Photographer: Jack Lindsay. Archives# CVA 1184-3269.

1940s. Pedestrians outside the A.B.C. Coffee Shop, 3700 E Hastings. Photographer: Jack Lindsay. Archives# CVA 1184-3277.

1946. Cafe Casa Loma. Photographer: Jack Lindsay. Archives# CVA 1184-3261.

1940s. Richards Coffee Shop & Confectionary at Richards and Dunsmuir. Photographer: Jack Lindsay. Archives# CVA 1184-3280.

1946. Don’t Argue Coffee Shop on Hastings. Creator: Donn Williams. Archives# CVA 586-4394.

1955. Empire Building at Hastings and Seymour. Photographer: Walte E. Frost. Archives# CVA 447-329.

1959. Smitty’s Coffee Shop at Granville and Cordova. Photographer: Walter E. Frost. Archives# CVA 447-325.

1974. 300 West Pender St south side. Archives# CVA 778-268.

Mamma Mia!, the smash hit musical based on the songs of ABBA, returns to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver March 29th to April 3rd, 2016.

Pre-Sale Code for Mamma Mia! in Vancouver

Mamma Mia! is one of the most successful musicals of all time, the eighth longest running show in Broadway history and one of only five current musicals to have run for more than ten years on Broadway. The West End production is now in its 17th year. The international tour has visited more than 81 foreign cities in 37 countries.

• Show Dates: March 29 to April 3, 2016
• Show Times: Tuesday through Saturday evenings at 8:00pm, Sunday evening 7:30pm and Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2:00pm.
• Where: Queen Elizabeth Theatre (650 Hamilton St, Vancouver)

AMamma Mia! is the ultimate feel-good show that has audiences coming back again and again to relive the thrill. Now it’s your turn to have the time of your life at this smash-hit musical that combines ABBA’s greatest hits, including “Dancing Queen,” “S.O.S.,” “Super Trouper,” “Take A Chance on Me” and “The Winner Takes It All,” with an enchanting tale of love, laughter and friendship. Whether it’s your first visit or your fourteenth, see the show that has the whole world coming back for more, because every time feels like the first time at Mamma Mia!

Pre-Sale Code & Link

This pre-sale link will be ONLY available January 22, 2016 at 10:00am until January 24, 2016 and the code to use is SOPHIE.

Tickets

Individual tickets for Mamma Mia! will go on sale Monday,January 25, 2016 at 10:00am. Tickets are available at 1-855-985-5000 or through Ticketmaster online. Reservations for groups of ten or more are now being accepted by calling 1-800-889-8457.

Follow Broadway Across Canada on Twitter and Facebook for more information about their shows coming to Vancouver in 2016.

Explore the what an artisan sake maker, two breweries, and a distillery have to offer when you sign up for the Meet Your Makers Spirit Tour on Granville Island during Winterruption this year.

Where: Tour starts inside Granville Island Brewery (1441 Cartwright St, Vancouver)
When: Saturday, February 20 & Sunday, February 21, 2016 at 2:00pm
Tickets: Available online for $13.50 plus fee. Must be 19+.

Award-winning travel writer John Lee will lead the walking tour for the third year, stopping at four locations: Dockside Brewery and Granville Island Brewing Company to taste hand crafted beer; Artisan Sake Maker to try locally made sake, and Liberty Distillery, to learn the art of distilling vodka, gin and white whiskey.

All of these unique locations are within 500m walking distance of each other on Granville Island. “The best booze districts are always in areas with a slightly gritty, often industrial history — and Granville Island is dripping with that kind of character,” says tour leader John Lee. “We touch on that a little on the tour and we also hear from the makers about what they feel connects them to Granville Island.”

New this year is the fourth location, and more time added at each stop. “For some people, the chance to ask questions is key but others just want to sip and enjoy their tipples — either way works really well on this tour! The one thing that hasn’t changed is the diversity of our four producers — they really couldn’t be more different in both their approaches and what they are making.”

The Meet Your Makers Spirit Tour is part of the 11th annual Winterruption festival on Granville Island that features music, dance, film, theatre, art, food, craft, indoor and outdoor activities.

Maple Tree Square sits at one of the most photographed, and most historic, intersections in Vancouver where Water, Powell, Alexander, and Carrall streets meet.

It dates back to the time when Vancouver was called Granville Townsite, and when John “Gassy Jack” Deighton opened the area’s first saloon in 1867. Deighton had paddled over from New Westminster and and told mill workers that they could have all the whiskey they could drink if they helped him build a saloon. Within 24 hours “The Globe” was up and running.

1880 . “Gassy Jack’s Tree”. Photograph attributed to Joseph Davis. Archives# Dist P11.1.

An early Maple Tree Square timeline via Heart of the City:

January 1886, as the New Year began, maple trees, towering cedars, skunk cabbage and swamp surround Granville Townsite; salmon entered the streams of False Creek. Residents assemble on the shell midden under Gastown’s old maple tree for town meetings and performances. Most of the sawmill workers and longshoremen are Native, Metis, Hawaiian; the rest come from the four corners of the globe. Chinook is as common as English.

April 1886, newly arrived immigrant workers hold a strike at Hastings Mill for a 10-hour workday: Burrard Inlet’s first official labour dispute. Mill manager Alexander holds a conciliation committee meeting under the Maple Tree.

June 1886, the new police chief tears out the benches around Maple Tree Square to discourage loitering.

The area quickly became the new city’s centre of trade and commerce, and drinking. Over the next 40 years, 300 bars popped up within a 12 block radius.

1886. Maple Tree Square. Archives# Str P83.

Maple Tree Square today features a statue of Gassy Jack, after whom the Gastown area was named; the Hotel Europe, which was built in 1909; the old Alahambra Hotel (Byrnes Block) building, built in 1887; along with offices, shops, services, and restaurants.

1907. Looking north on Carrall, toward Water. Photographer: Philip Timms. Archives# CVA 677-577.
Modern day Google Street View image of Maple Tree Square, with the Bynes Block on the left.

The Alhambra Hotel is part of the Byrnes Block, one of the oldest buildings in Vancouver that it still standing today. Many other structures from the early years around Maple Tree Square went up in flames during the Great Vancouver Fire of 1886.

Gastown has been through many changes over the years, including a restoration in the 1970s to pull it back from retrofits and renovations that suited the disco era. Among the changes, to preserve its distinctive and historic architecture, cobblestone streets replaced paved asphalt, and Maple Tree Square was assembled brick by brick to create a small plaza. A Steam Clock was also installed just up the street.

1968. Before reconstruction began. Archives item# CVA 780-690.
1972. Constructing the Maple Tree Square plaza in Gastown. Archives# CVA 780-726.

There was a push to have Gastown declared a historic site in 1971 but it wasn’t actually officially designated as a National Historic Site until 2009.

Today, you can enjoy a pint on the patio at Six Acres or Chill Winston, or enjoy an award-winning meal at L’Abattoir, as you look out at this historic meeting place, where the City of Vancouver began.

For more history about the area, check out Forbidden Vancouver’s Lost Souls of Gastown walking tour. The vintage photos in this post are all sourced from the City of Vancouver Archives.