Local Attraction: United Strangers

Written by Joanné Scherman, Claire Dallimore and Gloria Jung

Do you need someplace near LGCA to sit down, read a book, or have a warm drink with your friends? Here is a hot spot that is perfect for this upcoming winter season: United Strangers. A brisk 5-8 minute walk from campus, this is the perfect place to go during your lunch break, or even after school, to have a cozy, chill environment to study or wind down after a long day. Try their new fruit matchas, or get a turkey, apple and brie sandwich for a comforting and warm meal. You can find more than food at United Strangers. From candles to cards to jeans, there’s not much you can’t find. Make sure to pop in for a visit sometime!

Previously, they had the coolest mind flare decoration up for Halloween! Sadly came down on November 28th. Luckily, they plan to put it up in the following years around Halloween, so if you missed it, fret not, for it will be back!

But, I can blab about how amazing this café is for pages, without showing you much. So, we reached out, and we were blessed enough to have the opportunity to interview the founder! Find the interview below:

Interview with Christine Reid, Founder of United Strangers

Interviewed by Joanné Scherman and Claire Dallimore

Joanné: First of all, what's your name and how long have you worked at United Strangers?

Christine: So my name is Christine Reid and I am the owner and founder of United Strangers. We opened in July 2020, so it's been just over five years..

Claire: Wow.

Christine: Yeah.

Joanné: So what exactly do you do?

Christine: What exactly do I do?

Joanné: Other than everything.

Christine: It's kind of evolved and changed and shifted. I think in the beginning I was an architect and a designer and planner and having to bring in project management for building out the shop. And over the past five years it's shifted into being the barista and the person behind the till to the person who is training all of our staff and employees. Paying the bills, the bookkeeper, the payroll. I do a little bit of everything and that's because I've had jobs and experiences over the last 20 years that have allowed me to dabble and play and, (um…) you know, really work and hone on those skills. So, some things I've had to learn, (like..) how to be an architect and designer and work within permits and regulations of zoning, but other things I've been doing for a long time, bookkeeping and payroll and, (um..) managing people. Yeah..

Joanné: What is it like working here?

Christine: I haven't been working here very often this past year, but I would say the experience that our staff members have in working here is that they feel connected to a community. They're not only making coffee or providing a service, but they're able to meet new people in their community. They're able to make new friends. And there's been lots of really great connections that have happened between staff members, but also staff members and members of our community as well.

Claire: How many people work here?

Christine: There are currently 15 people that work here. We have a lot of seasonal staff, part-time staff, full-time staff, and people who come and go. So we have some really great employees that we've had from the very beginning like Bella. She was 15 years old when she first started working for us and now she's in her second year of university and it's just really cool to be able to see her kind of go and progress. But she's such a stellar employee that anytime she's home from school or she has availability, we always make space for her because she's so rad.

Claire: That's awesome.

Joanné: (Um…) Are you interested in opening in new locations?

Christine: It's something that since the first time we opened, (um..) people have asked us. At the beginning, we weren't really interested. We really wanted to nail down and feel really good about our processes and everything here and really establish a community. But in the last year we have been poking around and there have been a couple of locations we've looked at, but nothing has felt right. What's really special about this location is the Blue Ridge community that we find ourselves in but also the location. It was just an area that was underserved and it just has the vibe of you know a great community connector.

Joanné: What's the most common customer you get? Like bikers, parents..?

Christine: Oh, the most common by far will be parents who have just dropped their kids off at school. During the week and then on the weekends, yeah, people who are out using the trail network. So we have this amazing trail network here on Mount Seymour and people who are either hiking or running, mountain biking, or road cycling on our really nice bike lanes here on Mount Seymour Parkway. Yeah, people who are just out and about using the outdoors that we are so lucky to have here on the North Shore.

Joanné: True.

Claire: Is that mainly why you chose this location to open up?

Christine: Yes and no. I mean, it was definitely a part of the reason why. This location has existed as a community connector space since the early 1900s. So there's old photos I can show you afterwards of how this space has looked and evolved. It once was, it first started as a post office space. And then it became like a bit of a grocery store. It was a gas station for a slight period of time. And then this building was built in the 1970s. And then it sat there. It was a corner store that a lot of people my age or even older can remember having come here. It was a convenience store and it was run by a family. And then it sat vacant for 18 years. So there were a lot of people in the Blue Ridge community who just were encouraging the landlord to allow someone else to come into the space.

Claire: That's awesome. What's your favorite thing on the menu?

Christine: I love a flat white. It's my go-to drink every morning. It's awesome.

Joanné: Nice. Do you wish to improve anything about this store moving forward in the next few years?

Christine: Storage. On the floor, things can look really good, but behind the scenes, once you kind of peel it back, you can see that we are growing out of our space. So just being active over the years, you know, we have Halloween decorations here and with the stranger things outside, we've definitely acquired a bunch of things, seasonal things. So just trying to find some storage solutions because when we first opened, we literally just had coffee, some treats outside. Peanut butter and alternative milks on our shelves and if you look and see now we have hundreds of different types of products so we've really grown over the last five years which means our storage space has really outgrown.

Claire: How did you get the idea to put the Stranger Things decoration up?

Christine: The Stranger Things is an idea that I've had for the last five years. You know, United Strangers, Stranger Things. I really like Stranger Things. I love the story. I love the group of people and the lore around it. And I'm really excited about this season. But I've had this idea to put a mind flare on top for the last five years. But I haven't had the brain space or the ability to. I'm really good at having a vision, but I'm not… Good at artistically creating that. So I happened to be in a conversation with a friend of mine whose partner had just some free time. And I was (like..) I wonder if Michael would want to be able to create something like this. So he and I sat down and I just shared with him some of my ideas. And ultimately, yeah, since late August, early September, he started creating the mind flare in our backyard at home. And it comes apart in different pieces and our hope is to bring it back out every Halloween from here on out. So it really, like many of my ideas, it kind of sits in my head till we find the right people and the right connections in the community to bring it to fruition. Yeah, it's really unique, it's huge.

Claire: Is it heavy?

Christine: So it's made out of like two by fours and then it's wrapped with chicken wire and then it's wrapped with plastic. And then that plastic is spray painted, but it's like rusted spray paint. So it's like things that you can, be out in the rain and in the elements. So it's not too heavy and it does come apart in about 10 to 12 pieces so that we can take it apart from our house and bring it here and set it up. So now our hope is to find a good storage space for it so we can bring it back out next year.

Joanné: Do you think it will survive the snow? Are you planning to keep it around that long?

Christine: No, we're going to take it down on November 28th. So just right after the fifth season launches, we're going to bring it down and then we'll put out some Christmas decorations.

Joanné: How easy is it to get hired as a high schooler?

Christine: How easy is it? We like to balance in making sure that on our team that there is… a balance between people who are seasoned and who really know a lot about our business and who are willing to coach and educate and mentor younger people, and making sure that there's space for younger people to be able to do that. So we tend to have maybe one or two different high school students, but they stay with us over the course of time so that they can really be mentored and it tends to be their first working experience. So being able to showcase them like what a good boss looks like and what are your employment standards and how should you be treated? This isn't just a place to come and make minimum wage. We don't pay anyone minimum wage here because we're looking for individuals who want to spend time with us and who really want to progress in their career. So we try to keep it to a small number of high schoolers. So it is kind of competitive to, (um..) as a high school student, but it's competitive for a reason. Cause we're going to give you a lot of our time and a lot of our effort. And so will the rest of the team. And that's because of the kind of space that we've created in terms of mentoring each other. And so that it's not just like, oh, here you go. Here's your job. Just do the job. There's a lot of other things that go along with it.

Joanné: How's the balance right now? Are you looking for high schoolers?

Christine: No, not right now, we're not looking to hire anyone else right now. We do have someone who's just out of high school and then we have someone who's currently in high school right now. So I feel like we're pretty well balanced, but then that always shifts and changes as people move on and do other things. But we tend to have people who love to stick around, which is why we've never found ourselves having a hard time hiring people.

Claire: Last question, which is your favorite season to work here?

Christine: I really like Christmas time like we're going into our favorite time of year (um..) because of a few things. It is very busy here come Christmas time.

Joanné: Is it the busiest season?

Christine: It's definitely our busiest season. It was our unintended busiest season. We thought summer would be our busiest time before we opened our doors. But Christmas gifts and the products that we carry tend to make it really, really busy this time of year. We've done special events in the past (like…) music nights and holiday events, buying nights and stuff like that. But this year we're just going to keep it really simple and just do some fun things on the weekends and during the week. But also there's always the potential for snow and that first snow is always so fun because our staff love shoveling the parking lot. We don't hire someone to come and shovel our parking lot. We don't hire a contractor. So our staff go out and shovel the parking lot and it's because the whole city kind of shuts down as soon as it snows.

Claire: Mhmm..

Christine: A lot of our staff live in the area so they still are able to come to work safely and they're just really excited to shovel the snow in the parking lot and it just becomes like a fun thing to do for a few days until the snow kind of settles down, so it's nice to have that crisp white snow and the you know the lights and everything so that's it's my personal favorite season, I'm so busy. Any other questions?

Joanné: No.. Thank you!

Christine: No, thank you. Thanks for wanting to interview me and for your questions. It was very good. Very efficient as well.