The Garden Adds a Long-Overdue Wine Bar Energy to Strathcona

For years, The Garden has occupied a slightly unusual lane in Vancouver. Part café, retail space, and plant store – never really operating like a standard café, and now it’s moving even further away from that format with the addition of dinner, wine, cocktails, and evening service.

Don’t worry, the daytime side of things remains intact: Mushroom bowls, coffee, baked goods, smoothies, casual daytime traffic. But on Thursday through Sunday, around 3pm, the room starts to shift. Happy hour rolls in and the space moves into a slower wine bar rhythm.

The physical changes are subtle but effective. Some of the more casual café seating has been replaced with larger tables and banquette seating that allows people to settle in rather than rotate through. The room still carries its familiar industrial structure: concrete block walls, exposed conduit, tall windows, heavy wood tables. But the newer layout pushes warmth further forward and comes off as a bit more sophisticated than its original café iteration. Plants spill downward from shelves above the banquettes, candlelight bounces off glassware, and the dark leather seating grounds the space with a functional but comfortable simplicity.

The menu follows a similarly straightforward approach, organized between categories of ‘Sea’, ‘Land’, and ‘Grown’ and geared to work with wine. Dishes I tried at a recent friends & family evening included a crudo with wild salmon, Hokkaido scallop, yuzu, blood orange, and charred jalapeño aioli, alongside a strong charcuterie board loaded with truffle salumi, spicy soppressata, aged cheeses, olives, onion marmalade, and spiced nuts served with a side of fresh focaccia. Smaller plates like hummus with beetroot and togarashi, spiced yams with sheep’s yogurt and poblano, and a miso dressed ‘Chop Chop’ Salad all landed comfortably in that snack-and-wine-bar territory where the main event can still just be a good glass of wine, with a few thoughtful snacks added so you’re not drinking on an empty stomach. There are also a handful of larger dishes like a roast lamb sandwich layered with salsa verde, eggplant, pickled red onion, provolone, and kale, providing a more filling option for people staying longer into the evening.

The wine list deserves mention (this is a wine bar after all). It’s thoughtfully put together but not overly academic, with a noticeable focus on female producers and biodynamic wines that fit The Garden’s longstanding practice of intentional sourcing. When I asked The Garden owner Anna McMillan about this, she responded: “As a female-founded business operating in a male-dominated industry, I know firsthand the challenges and tenacity it requires. The wine world is no different. Women in wine have long been underrepresented, often overlooked and rarely celebrated in proportion to the quality of what they’re producing. We wanted to bring them to the forefront and celebrate them accordingly. At the heart of everything we do is the belief that it matters who you support and why. At The Garden, we have always been rooted in the integrity of knowing where things come from, who made them, and what they stand for.”

Cocktails were a surprise (I’d been focused on the idea of a wine bar when I opened the menu to a list of half a dozen cocktails), but the drinks were very good. The Ember (brown butter, Japanese whisky, umeshu, milk oolong tea, yuzu, peated scotch, and carrot juice) was a standout, managing to be layered and complex without drifting into novelty-for-the-sake-of-novelty. I have found myself wanting this drink a few times since.

While Strathcona Beer Company keeps this stretch of Hastings Street active, there still aren’t many places nearby for neighbourhood residents to head out for wine and a bite. The Garden slides naturally into that gap without forcing a major identity shift. It still feels like the same space people know from daytime visits, just recalibrated after dark.

If you’re looking for a place that still feels slightly unclaimed to meet friends for a glass of wine, a few plates, and a slower evening, The Garden is a nice option.