It was while riding her bike on the greenbelt during her first summer in Revelstoke that Lauren Webster fell in love with the city for good.
Her and her partner John Pierce had been spending winters in Revelstoke and summers travelling since January 2014. In what was supposed to be their last summer in Canada, they stayed in Revelstoke.
“It was the first time in my time in Canada that I was convinced that this could be my home forever and not just a working holiday,” Webster said.
It was during those bike rides that the Australian duo dreamed up Dose.
It started out as renovating a shed then changed to a drive by coffee stand. The cafe had all sorts of iterations before becoming what it is today.
When the current space became available Webster and Pierce made their move.
Even then the plans changed a lot, at first it was going to be a coffee nook of sorts. But then they took the walls down and exposed the wood on the ceiling.
“It just kind of snowballed,” Webster said.
Now the co-owners have 12 staff and they love coming to work.
“It’s not what we had planned, but it is more our style, to be serving this kind of food,” Webster said. “This is what we miss from back home.”
Webster grew up in a household with good food.
“My mom was a home ec teacher so there was a lot of cooking done in our house,” she said.
The millionaire shortbread that Dose sells is Webster’s mom’s recipe.
“I still enjoy cooking, I can’t keep up with the guys in here now though,” Webster said with a laugh.
Besides cooking and baking with mom, Webster doesn’t really have a background in the cafe business, she studied property development economics at university and worked in commercial real estate before moving to Canada.
Though she said she does lean on her degree a little bit in running the business, she has learned things she never would have learned if she had continued down the path of real estate agent.
“Nothing can really prepare you for what you need to do when you are opening a business,” she said.
At the moment the duo are waiting to hear back about their application for permanent residency, but they have a back up plan if that doesn’t work out.
“We are staying here for sure,” Webster said.
They have too many plans for Dose to leave anytime soon.