Your home town. Your home cooking.
When we think of comfort food, we think of home. The crackling crust of fresh-baked bread as you slice into it, still warm from the oven. The welcoming aroma of a pot of hearty soup, simmering on the stove for hours on a frosty winter’s day. The dot of frosting that sticks to the end of your nose after your first bite into a moist, homemade cupcake, welcoming you to smile no matter how dreary your day.
Comfort food more than about feeding your belly. It is about feeding your fondest memories and indulging all your senses.
Since 2009, The Coffee Cottage has been the home of comfort food in Innisfail, AB.
Let us do the cooking
& cleaning tonight!
Shaun has lived in Red Deer County his whole life and attended school here in Innisfail. As a kid, he loved to spend time in the kitchen with his mom, making meals go further for his family including two hungry brothers. In his teens and early twenties, Shaun learned about the art of customer service and front-of-house management working at The Cheesecake Cafe. Until recently he had worked at one of the local vehicle dealership as a red seal parts technician, but he has quickly made The Coffee Cottage his number one priority.
Dale grew up in Calgary and also inherited a love of cooking and baking from his family. Spending time on his grandparents’ farms he learned to grow and harvest produce. From both his grandmothers he learned many approaches to pickling and preserving and how to make use of every element. Starting in his late teens, Dale worked in several restaurants in Calgary and Banff, moving on to one of the top catering companies in Calgary for a number of years. When he moved to Victoria BC, he took on a number of catering gigs under his own name. Dale has an attention to detail and loves to develop and modify recipes to take them to the next level.
The Coffee Cottage opened its doors in 2009 as an intimate coffee shop with a few tables, a limited menu, and an idea that reasonably priced, hand-crafted food and a decent cup of coffee could bring customers through the door. The idea worked, and over the next few years, the residents of Innisfail came to faithfully support the café. They returned for not just the food and beverages but for the down-home, make-you-feel-welcome attitude the original owners Joe & Jodi cultivated. As the business grew, so did the restaurant, and in 2015 they expanded into the adjacent space, doubling the seating capacity.
In 2017, The Coffee Cottage expanded into catering. This division of the business built a regular clientele that now includes many local and area businesses and organizations. The company also has successfully catered numerous weddings over the years, and have focused on growing this aspect of the catering business as more out-of-towners discover Innisfail as a unique destination wedding venue.
In March 2020, the COVID-19 crisis necessitated Joe & Jodi to shut down operations temporarily. With time away from the pulse of every day business, they realized that this might be an opportunity to continue to take things a little slower, and as such, decided to put The Coffee Cottage up for sale. Within the blink of an eye, local residents and Coffee Cottage fans Dale & Shaun saw an opportunity to keep this Innisfail institution thriving.
The new chapter of The Coffee Cottage made its debut in June 2020. In the midst of shifting COVID restrictions, Dale and Shaun first focused on physically-distant pick-up and delivery of The Coffee Cottage’s bestsellers with limited hours of operation. As Innisfail residents flocked to support the business, Dale and Shaun began to expand the menu to include new comfort food favourites, and expanded the team to help meet demand. The dining room reopened , and hours were expanded to include Saturdays.
These days, the Coffee Cottage team is hustling to make enough custom cupcakes to keep smiles on folks’ faces and support the community through various initiatives including teen board game nights, school supply drives, student mentoring programs, men’s mental health awareness, and holiday fundraisers.
From the very beginning, The Coffee Cottage was always the place to come for comfort food. Now The Coffee Cottage is a place all the members of the community can call home.
The Coffee Cottage continues to evolve, adding in more seating and event space in the second floor loft plus a dedicated bakery kitchen to increase production of our famous baked goods. To the main floor, we are delighted to partner with artisan makers of handcrafted goods and necessary luxuries including kitchen provisions, pantry staples, home décor, handy gadgets and tools – an old-fashioned mercantile meeting contemporary needs.
We look forward to hosting more in-house events in the loft space, private dining room and outdoor seating areas, making space for private functions and more community gatherings.
Money can’t buy happiness
But it can buy coffee!
When Shaun spotted the post on Facebook that Joe and Jodi were looking to sell The Coffee Cottage, we decided to set our big dreams in motion. We saw a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to keep a beloved local business on the map – to infuse a tried-and-true business with the ideal balance of nostalgia and fresh ideas. We are thrilled to share our passion with you as the business grows. Thank you in advance for your continuing support of this Innisfail institution!
monday – friday
6:30 am – 4:30 pm
saturday
10:00 am – 4:00 pm
