Open Book Coffee to open on Strawberry Hill

Nimbus Publishing and Vagrant Press are moving their offices and with the new, improved digs (3660 Strawberry Hill Street) comes an added bonus. A coffee shop! In partnership with the publishers, Joe Tinney—partner of Nimbus/Vagrant GM Terrilee Bulger—will open Open Book Coffee sometime in May.

After a 30-year career as a flight attendant allowed him much exploration of coffee shops across the world, Tinney is bringing hot drinks and an appreciation of literature to the neighbourhood. “The way we want to set it up is tapping into a couple of needs we see in the community—there’s really nowhere around there where you can get a coffee shop experience. It’s also at a good location for being at the nexus of people coming from Bedford, Dartmouth, Clayton Park and the peninsula,” he says of the deep north location. “We’re hoping to tap more into the literary community and make a venue known for that.”

Tinney says the cafe will host events, sell coffee from Java Blend Coffee Roasters, baked good courtesy of Easter Seals’ New Leaf Enterprises and have a distinctly industrial, steam-punk-inspired vibe.

“I’m looking forward to the next chapter in my life,” he says of Open Book. “ I’m very fortunate that I can put a few things I’m passionate about—food and drinks, and I’m a voracious reader—into a possible career. I’m really geared up about it.”

This article appears in Mar 1-7, 2018.