Float Side-by-Side at HÄLSA Spa

Dim light, a sake flight, and small plates you have to negotiate over, which is how a low-key izakaya date runs three hours.

A shag-carpeted 1970s speakeasy hidden behind a fake accounting office, where the cocktails are far better than the decor suggests.

A Mount Pleasant urban winery fermenting natural BC wine in buried Georgian clay jars, with Saturday jazz and grocery-style cheese plates.

Follow the single red light behind a Main Street furniture shop down a graffiti stairwell into Vancouver's most satisfying open secret.

The old Old Crow room on Front Street, now pouring cocktails named after star signs until eleven.

Off the Moda Hotel lobby on Seymour: low-lit, Italian small plates, marble bar, and a daily 2-to-5 happy hour worth knowing about.

Dundarave's small Italian bar with the raised, flower-hedged patio, where one glass has a well-documented habit of turning into three hours.

A gloriously retro sunken circular bar a block off English Bay, where happy hour, low light, and the best free sunset in the city do all the work.

Arguably Steveston's best patio, with a rotating tap list and a flight-friendly board for finding out whose beer takes are a dealbreaker.

The one properly grown-up cocktail room in Surrey City Centre, tucked into the lobby of the Civic Hotel a block from the SkyTrain.

A Cacao Barry ambassador's tiny Swiss patisserie where the pistachio-versus-blueberry macaron debate has caused real diplomatic incidents.

An upscale whisky lounge in Central City with a deep whisky wall, a long BC and imported wine list and a happy hour that runs twice a day.

North Van's original nano-brewery, still pouring one of the best IPA lineups in the region out of a tasting room that has never once tried to be fancy.

All-butter pies and specialty coffee on a heritage strip in Moody Centre, where the afternoon has nowhere else to be.