Koolfest Vancouver

Koolfest is a celebration of exotic cold summer drinks in July and August. It showcases vendors from Vancouver’s Hot Chocolate Festival which happens in winter.

If you want to experience fancy and delicious cool beverages, you’ll want to check out the drinks on offer through Koolfest. The lineup includes milkshakes, chocolate milks, mocha creations, floats and other liquid summer treats!

For the drink series’ official website, visit koolfest.ca.

Koolfest Vancouver

Koolfest is a new summer hot chocolate festival. In 2025 it runs from July 19th until August 10th.

The people behind Koolfest are the same folk behind the Vancouver Hot Chocolate Festival which has been happening for over a dozen years from mid-January until Valentine’s Day. Both festivals feature special drinks from a wide range of participating businesses. During the winter festival the drinks are hot. In summer, however, they are icy cold. In both cases, the drinks are both exotic and delicious. There is nothing plain and ordinary about them.

Neither Koolfest nor the Hot Chocolate Festival are technically “festivals” in that they don’t feature parades, live music, carnival rides, balloons, midways, face painting stations, food trucks, festival fairgrounds or anything like that. Instead, they are simply awesome excuses for people to discover new places and experience heavenly drinks!

With both Koolfest and the Hot Chocolate Festival, dozens of Metro Vancouver-based cafés, ice cream shops, patisseries, chocolatiers and other businesses offer a couple of special drink items each during the festivals. Participating venues represent some of the best coffee shops, bakeries and other specialty food and drink-related retailers in the region.

Koolfest Vancouver Participating Vendors

Over forty different places are participating in Koolfest in its inaugural year. Well over half are spread out over the City of Vancouver. Neighbourhoods you’ll find Koolfest drink vendors include Gastown, Granville Island, Kitsilano, Yaletown, Mount Pleasant and other parts of town.

In 2025 locations participating in Koolfest include À La Mode Pie Café, Aiyaohno Cafe, Bar Down Bakery, Beaucoup Bakery & Cafe, Bel Café, Bellaggio Cafe, Boba Run, Boketto Desert Café, The Bunny Cafe, Cadeaux Bakery, Caffe Delish, Casa Mia, Charisma Social Club House, Chocolate Favoris, East Van Roasters, Kafka’s Coffee, La Saison De Patisserie, Ladurée, Little Pisces Taiyaki, Nelson the Seagull Cafe, NUTTEA, Super Veloce, SWEET7 Fruit Tea, Uprising Breads Bakery, and Whisk Matcha x Level V.

In addition to the above, a number of chocolatiers are in Koolfest this year. They include the Drunken Chocolatier, Gem Chocolates, Giovane Caffe, The Good Chocolatier, Kasama Chocolate, and Mink: A Chocolates Cafe. You’ll find a couple of Koolfest drink options at the Vancouver Aquarium too (which specializes in live fish as opposed to chocolate).

Some participating vendors have just one location. Others have multiple. Examples of places with more than one location include Caffe Artigiano, Thomas Haas Chocolates, Uno Gelato, 49th Parallel Café & Lucky’s Doughnuts, Bella Gelateria, Crème de la Crumb, Faubourg Bakery, Mercato di Luigi and others.

Although most of the participating vendors have locations somewhere within the City of Vancouver, you’ll find a few in other communities too, including in New Westminster, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam and Richmond as well as on the North Shore. Examples include Bak’d Cookies (in New Westminster), Cassandra Cake Co. (in Port Coquitlam), Doughnut Love (in Coquitlam), Hanoi Drip Coffee (in Richmond), and Catch 122 x Dilemma (in North Vancouver).