At JJ Bean, we believe all people have intrinsic value and seek to honour everyone — from our coffee producers to our staff and ultimately our customers — through the best coffee, food, spaces, and service possible.
Coffee
From sourcing and roasting all the way through to placing a cup on the counter for you, we seek to produce the most satisfying coffee possible – clean and sweet with expressive, perfectly harmonious flavours. We offer a range of blends with distinct profiles and a rotating selection of seasonal, terroir-driven single origin coffees.
Food
We make everything fresh, in-house, daily because it tastes better that way. We taste, test, and obsess over every recipe — always chasing something more delicious. Our menu reflects Vancouver's vibrant multicultural spirit, blending café classics with bold new creations from our culinary team.
Spaces
JJ Bean cafés are spaces where people connect and communities are served. Each location is crafted with intentional (and a few award-winning) designs that honour the unique heritage of every neighbourhood we join.
Service
If we pull the perfect shot or bake the best croissant ever, and it doesn’t make a real human happy, what’s the point? Placing our craft in this context doesn't lessen our pursuit of quality. It motivates us even more. Because people have intrinsic value, they should be served our best — with a level of human care that demonstrates this.
Our family has been roasting coffee in Vancouver for a century.
My grandfather Francis James Neate ("Gumpy") immigrated to Canada in the 1920s and apprenticed as a coffee roaster before launching Neates Coffee in 1945. Neates Coffee grew into a thriving wholesale coffee roaster under my father, John Sr. ("Big John”), who I worked with before the company was sold in 1990.
JJ Bean started in 1996 when my wife Melanie believed in me. She believed that I could leave a secure corporate job to pursue my passion for creating a very special business that would continue our family legacy in Vancouver.
JJ Bean emerged as an early leader in Vancouver’s third wave of specialty coffee, with a refined approach to quality and hospitality, thanks to all of the incredible people who have embraced our mission and joined our company over the decades.
Today, my son Jesse leads JJ Bean Coffee & Neate Donuts alongside me as COO and the fourth generation of our family to pursue honouring people through coffee.
— John Jr. (JJ), Founder & CEO
P.S You can read more about our history from our 25th Anniversary stories (Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3)
Carla Froese, Wholesale Leader; Grady Buhler, Coffee Leader; Julie Trottier, Bakery Leader; Jesse Neate, COO; John Neate, CEO & SLT Leader.
JJ Bean's Over + Above Foundation extends our mission of honouring people through coffee by going beyond our basic responsibility as a roaster. Rather than relying on third-party certifications, we committed to developing robust, industry-leading social and environmental programs that extend our mission of honouring people through coffee.
We strive for excellence in our operation to honour our customers, and in the hope that inspires you to serve our coffee with the same quality and care. Our wholesale partners are supported by the same team that has made JJ Bean Vancouver’s favourite and most trusted coffee source for three decades.
