Kafiex Roasters opens ‘Gastro Café’ in Vancouver, WashingtonDaily Coffee News from Roast Magazine

Menu items from the new Kafiex Gastro Café in Vancouver, Washington. All images courtesy of Kafiex.

With its second coffee shop on the banks of the Columbia River across from Portland in Vancouver, Washington, Kafiex Roasters has taken a more culinary direction, borrowing a term that is not often used in the coffee industry.

The spacious new Kafiex Gastro Café offers a coffee program with beans roasted in the company’s nearby roasting café, as well as breakfast and brunch products that focus on local and seasonal ingredients. Co-owner Seidy Selivanow now also wears the chef’s hat.

Kafiex Roaster Vancouver Gastro Cafe

Beer and wine flow along later in the day along with a coffee-centered cocktail program designed by Jon Davidson that includes broth-laden drops like mezcanela, a mezcal and coffee liqueur drink with cinnamon and clove syrup and a dash of cold brew served over a large ice cube.

“Gastro comes from the gastropub concept of high-quality food,” Matthew Selivanow, co-founder and chief roaster of Kafiex Roasters, told Daily Coffee News. “We wanted to apply it to a café.”

Kafiex Roaster Vancouver Breakfast

In a modern space roughly 350 square feet larger than Kafiex’s original 1,500 square foot location in the Coffee Lab, the impressive coffee bar at Kafiex Gastro Café is made from burl and black epoxy. On top of it sits a custom matte black espresso machine from Rancilio Specialty alongside a matte black Curtis Seraphim automatic pourover brewing system. A Curtis G4 batch brewer makes fast cups flow, while Hario radiant heaters channel their dazzling energy up the slow rod through a series of five siphon brewers.

“The building has LEED platinum certification, so we wanted to take this into account and keep it looking very sustainable, fresh,” Selivanow said of the store’s cool concrete floors, warm cedar surfaces and neutral tones. “We wanted to create a place where all people of all ages and cultures are welcome, just like at our first location.”

Rancilion espresso

A mural by artist Nikki Cade also reflects the first location and brings a dash of vibrant colors to the room. In the Coffee Lab, Cade’s design is a world map highlighting the coffee belt, and the full mural in the Gastro Pub is inspired by a coffee farm landscape.

Natural light from a window front illuminates the mural of the gastro café and offers customers a view of the Columbia River and the I5 bridge.

Kafiex Roaster Vancouver Latte

Although the coffee laboratory location had to close for a few months during the pandemic, Selivanov said it was ultimately a productive time for the company. In the days leading up to its closure, Kafiex opened its online coffee bean store, which then led to a subscription service that Selivanow called a great success. The downtime was also an opportunity to design and bring an RTD can cold brew product to market.

“We decided to look at it positively,” said Selivanov. “It made our business model more resilient.”

Kafiex owner

Kafiex owners Seidy and Matthew Selivanow.

The Kafiex Gastro Café is now open at 100 Parkway Pl. in Vancouver, Washington.

Howard Bryman
Howard Bryman is Associate Editor of Roast Magazine’s Daily Coffee News. He lives in Portland, Oregon.