Cabin Fever Collective – Indie Coffee Passport 2013/14
You might have seen my post on this year’s Indie Coffee Passport <3 Edition, what’s new this time around, and my map of Vegan Eats paired with Indie Coffee Passport locations.
Cabin Fever Collective on Bloor was my first stop on the Indie Coffee Passport list in December of last year (p.s. that’s 2013.)
I was trying to buy a few passports for JC and myself, as well as JC’s brother & his partner for our annual family gift exchange, but several of the coffee shops I stopped into were all sold out. I called Cabin Fever, and… success, they still had a few left. And they took cash, debit, and credit. Perfect.
For me the biggest benefit of Cabin Fever is that they’re close to me, I know, that doesn’t help you, but I really like it. It’s about a ten minute walk to Bloor, and then, there it is. If you’re taking transit Keele Station is the closest subway stop, but it’s also reasonably close to Dundas West Station.
On my first visit, I met one of the owners (who is very friendly) he runs the place with his wife, he told me that they’d been open for almost exactly one year. Their space seems to focus on records, tea, art, coffee, and other creative paraphernalia (& in that order).
They have a couple of bookshelves near the entrance with some really cute or interesting products, one of which was locally made and vegan-friendly Baked Soap Co. As you can see below they look delicious (that cupcake is actually soap!). As you can’t see below they also smell amazingly wonderful.
There is room in the cafe for about a dozen or so people if they want to sit down with a cup (assuming some of them are willing to share a table.) It’s not huge, but it is really comfortable. In addition to table seating, there is a couch at the back, and a few chairs at the bar.
Cabin Fever has free wifi, the password for which can be found on the lamp on every table. There are a few outlets if you want to go over there with your laptop and stay a while, which I’m considering doing very soon.
The other thing I noticed about this place – the music. There is always something interesting playing. It’s not intrusive, but it’s been something pleasant every time I’ve been in the cafe.
At first I scrunched up my nose at the milk frother. BUT it does the job. It’s not quite in high pressure steam frothing territory, but after trying a pour over coffee made in a chemex, & topped with a bunch of frothed soy milk I had to concede that it was better than the foam we’d been making with soy milk at home.
Cabin Fever provides you with a choice of almond milk, soy milk or coconut milk (and also have dairy milk), and they employ the use of a chem-ex and a few milk frothing units for coffees. They mentioned that they’re hoping to get a real espresso machine in there some day soon. But not yet.
They’ve got a few wraps & sandwiches from the Hogtown Cure, one of which sounds really promising – A Smoked Tofu Wrap with smoked tofu, peppers, mushrooms, cucumber, tomato, hummus. I don’t know if it’s vegan. I didn’t ask. But it sure looks like it. Other vegan (and gluten free) food options while you’re there are these cookies. On the day I went in, that was a Vanilla Chocolate Chunk Cookie.
Cabin Fever is one of those places I probably wouldn’t have discovered on my own, even though it’s in my neighbourhood, so I’m grateful to ICP for increasing its visibility.
Thank you so much for your kind words! My husband and I have tried our best to make our space everything we would want in a cafe. The espresso machine is in the works (finally!) so check back in a month or so and we can have you test out our espresso based drinks!
Cheers!