Boatworks café & courtyard
A leaking storage building, open as a forty-seat café by Canada Day.
- Location
- Caraquet
- Duration
- 9 weeks
- Completed
- 2024
- Category
- Commercial
Same vantage point, first morning and final day · Drag to compare
What we were actually asked to fix.
A 1950s boat storage building on a working wharf lot: no insulation, no washrooms, a slab with a 70mm fall to one corner, and a hard opening date tied to the summer season.
We worked backwards from Canada Day. Inspections were booked in week two, the millwork went into production before the partitions were up, and finishes were chosen from what we could get in the province in June.
We opened the café eleven days after they finished. Two winters in, not one callback.
- Self-levelling topping over the existing slab
- Cedar rainscreen cladding, courtyard screens
- Barrier-free washrooms, commercial fixtures
- Shop-milled service counter and shelving in ash
- Radiant slab loop under the seating area
The surprise, and what it cost.
The health inspector required a second hand sink 4m from the nearest drain, found in week seven. We cut and re-poured a 500mm channel in the new topping overnight so the tile crew kept their slot the next morning.
Where it landed.
Occupancy granted two days early, doors open on the holiday weekend, and a courtyard that has since been extended twice by the same crew.
