Nemesis Coffee Polygon

The bakehouse at Nemesis Coffee Polygon sits behind glass, so the pastry work is part of the room rather than hidden from it. Half bakery and kitchen, half coffee bar, the North Vancouver shop opened beside The Polygon Gallery in late 2019 and has kept both halves in view since.

Pastries and breads in North Vancouver

The baking runs under Nemesis’s own Dope Bakehouse brand, which covers colorful pastries and whole breads. Named items include the Classic Butter Croissant, Pain au Chocolat, The Queen and a Chocolate Caramel Croissant, and Polygon is one of the pickup points for the wider bakehouse range.

That production focus is what separates the shop from a grab-and-go pastry counter. Croissants and the bread case carry the identity here as much as the espresso does, and both are made where you can watch them being made.

A bright room in the Shipyards District

Polygon was designed as an evolution of the Gastown shop, with the back of house kept as open as possible and the bakehouse separated only by glass. Clean lines, potted greenery and warm wood surfaces set the base, then square patterns and a stronger blue tone tie the room to the brand’s blue pastry boxes.

The Polygon Gallery building’s glass structure does the rest, filling the room with daylight. Seating runs to roughly 35, with sightlines toward both the baristas and the bakers, which makes the Lower Lonsdale location somewhere to sit as much as somewhere to collect an order.

What to order

Start at the bakery counter: croissants, Pain au Chocolat, whole breads and whatever Dope Bakehouse pastry is in the case that morning. The Chocolate Caramel Croissant is the richer choice when it appears.

Coffee is equally specific. Nemesis works with Nordic and Australian-style light roasts, with Pilot Coffee from Toronto as the house espresso and Lüna Coffee as the standing drip. Single-origin espresso rotates weekly through guest roasters, whose bags also appear on the retail shelves. Filter drinkers can look for Hario V60 or Fetco preparations, run off a bar built around a custom blue three-group Modbar installation, two Modbar steam heads, Mahlkönig Peak grinders, an EK43 and an EK43S. A croissant with an espresso or a drip coffee is the simplest strong order.