Two obsessions,
one warm room.
Ember & Oak started with a garage roaster, a sourdough starter named Clint, and the idea that a café should feel like someone's home.
The ember and the oak.
The ember is the roast, Sam spent three years coaxing sweetness out of a tiny drum roaster in a Bridgeland garage, selling bags at farmers' markets on weekends.
The oak is the bake, Priya's sourdough and laminated pastry, proofed slow and baked before sunrise, first for neighbours, then for lines around the block.
In 2021 the two obsessions moved into one warm room in Kensington. The rule hasn't changed since: if we wouldn't serve it to our own family, it doesn't leave the counter.
Small batch, big care
Sourced with respect
Green beans bought through transparent importers who pay farmers properly, and we can tell you the farm behind every bag.
Roasted this week
Nothing on the shelf is older than seven days. Small drum, small batches, profiled for sweetness over bravado.
Made for staying
No laptops-per-hour quotas, no rushed tables. Order a cortado, take the window seat, watch Kensington go by.
Numbers we're
quietly proud of.
Four years in, still tiny on purpose. Growth was never the point, the cup was.
The window seat
is waiting.
112 Kensington Road NW, Calgary · Open daily from 7am
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