BC Business
Au Comptoir | BCBusiness
Vancouver’s newest French café, Au Comptoir (“at the counter/bar”), is unabashedly Parisian, from the servers right down to the custom built-in-France tin bar.
And while co-owners Maxime Bettili and Julien Aubin aren’t natives of the French capital (they met while studying in Poitiers 17 years ago), they spent the better part of a decade honing their skills in Parisian cafés and wanted to create a similar style here, right down to the extensive hours and no-reservations policy.
Bettili, previously of Les Faux Bourgeois and the Acorn, isn’t worried that locals will have trouble adjusting to arriving without a confirmed table. “I think people are ready for that now,” he says. “We are open all day and serve breakfast, lunch and dinner, with no break.”
Underscoring his belief that “sharing a meal is something important,” Bettili notes that Au Comptoir does not provide Wi-Fi, and with hours of operation running from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., “you can come and enjoy a meal at any time.”