Caffe Divano is a blink and you’ll miss it local cafe in Port Moody (they also have locations in Coquitlam and Burnaby). It is a great family run coffee shop with some of the best baked goods in the tri-cities. They also serve fantastic coffee, including super creative specialty drinks, and offer a wide selection of loose leaf teas (my favourite is their jasmine green tea). Located in the Klahanie housing development of Port Moody, it is my ‘go-to’ place for baked treats. My favourite items are their chocolate zucchini oat muffin and their chocolate chip banana bread (though that got discontinued recently). All the food is made in-house with real ingredients and from scratch in their kitchen. Nothing is mass produced, frozen and thawed here (I am looking at you, large coffee chain, that spells my name wrong every time I order a coffee). Every morning when I walk in, the owner is there serving up a mean cup of Americano and always friendly with conversation. The muffins and scones are often still warm from the oven and it is hard to resist a scone, muffin or delicious breakfast panini. Let’s just say I avoided Caffe Divano like a plague when I was in wedding weight loss mode last year! The owners have a passion for what they do and love to tell you about their food and business. You learn a lot from them and really get a sense that they care about the quality of their food and providing more healthy options (when possible) to their customers. They do a lot of small things to make a difference. For example, they use real essential oils for their peppermint mocha lattes, not syrup. Which means you are getting the minty flavour without the yucky sweetness/chemical crap storm in most syrups. Their eggnog holiday drinks are also made with farm fresh eggnog…which is way better than the eggnog most chains use. I know, I know, you are asking me. “But Phoenix, you just wrote about how you ran a marathon, how can you be telling me about all these baked goods?” Fear not friends, they have vegan friendly, paleo friendly and even wheat free treats. And their treats are never boring, they change constantly with the seasons. Besides, I have always said, if you’re going to cheat on your diet, it better f&*ing worth it, and the stuff at Divano is SOOOO worth it. In addition to coffee and baked goods, they also have some great healthy salads, soups, sandwich and breakfast options. I am honestly never disappointed with the food here, be it baked goods or the savoury variety. Oh and one more thing, they support local artists! They have a wide variety of artwork hanging in the cafe you can purchase. I love it; a small local business helping local artists! You can follow Caffee Divano on Twitter @caffedivano or like them on Facebook.