After 20 years, a local cooking school and cooking retail chainlet has closed down one of its locations but is carrying on in both Vancouver and Victoria.

Cook Culture permanently shut its doors at 1548 West Broadway (near Granville Street) on April 28.

The company began with a teaching kitchen in Victoria in 2010 and has since expanded to Vancouver with both cooking classes and shops.

Their retail stores offer everything from specialty baking pans, cookware sets, and knives to dinnerware and cookbooks to espresso makers, food processors, and juicers.

Owners Regan and Jed Grieve stated in a letter posted on social media and on the door of the West Broadway location that the closure was not due to rent. Rather it was because the location “will not accommodate the facilities needed for a teaching kitchen” as their other three locations do.

Three locations remain open in Downtown Vancouver (377 Howe Street), North Vancouver (1230 Lonsdale Avenue), and Victoria (1317 Blanshard Street).

In May 2018, the owners launched their plant-based Bliss Café at their downtown location with the help of Victoria’s Bliss Café.

In April of this year, Cook Culture relaunched the café as Culture Lab Organic Juice Bar which is dedicated to serving healthy, local, and seasonal menus featuring organic plant-based, and gluten-free drinks and food items, including smoothies and juices, bowls, and treats.