Check out this revamped café in a historic Kelowna barn

For over 100 years, an iconic red barn has stood out in Kelowna’s Lower Mission.

And now, that history is being highlighted in a name change for a beloved local bakery.

Historians will know of the red barn’s inception in 1927 as the Surtees Barn – a once prize-winning dairy operation in the city.

Fast-forward to 2023, and the former home of It’s … a Bakery is now a rejuvenated space paying homage to its roots with a new name, Milk Shed Coffeehouse.

Co-owner of Barn Owl Brewing Co, Gary Brucker, said in a Dec. 1 Facebook post that they had purchased the bakery to “continue and enhance what they started four years ago in the Lower Mission.”

Speaking to Kelowna10, Brucker said initially, this wasn’t their plan.

“Our next move was to find a new production facility on the brewery side because we have very small tanks and to try and keep up has been a challenge,” he explained. “When this space became available, we started to dream what could this be in terms of a close partnership together.”

But after stewing on the idea, Bruckner said given the established popularity of the café in the community, they didn’t want to use the extra space as part of the brewery.

“We thought that we could make use of combining a coffee house experience with the brewery experience,” Brucker said. “There was no seating in this little bakery, and to be able to push a door through and have places for the coffee and pastry clients to sit and enjoy when our building sits empty most mornings, is just a win-win.”

The brewery itself opened in July 2019, eight months before the COVID-19 pandemic. But despite the tough times, he said the community was determined to make the space an important gathering space in the Lower Mission.

“One of the things that was the gift of the pandemic to us is the number of people in this community that wanted to embrace this place as their own little local place, which was our goal,” he said. “They didn’t want to see it go down and during the early days of the pandemic, when we were only doing off sales, they would line up here to try and support us in any way they could.”

The redesigned café has all the same elements from its predecessor, including coffee, baked goods, and even most of the staff.

Milk Shed Coffeehouse is open daily from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.