Taste and Sip Magazine

I recently received a really cool, nifty gift that looked like a deck of cards or so I thought, upon looking closer at the outside package and then venturing inside I discovered discounts to some of my favourite eateries and shops along with more intriguing discounts to restaurants and shops that I have yet to visit, additionally there were maps of the neighborhoods and useful information. This gift was a great idea, friends getting me gifts always have had a tough time finding or knowing what I want, but this gift was perfect it had me intrigued. When I am curious I really want to know more about the project, I recently met up with the creator and founder Brenda Ee and here is her story and the creation of Travellers Deck.

Brenda Ee - Creator & Founder

The Vancouver deck, it is colour coded by neighborhood which includes Downtown, Kitsilano, South Granville/Granville Island, Cambie Village and Commercial Drive. Let’s say you are going to be going downtown and want to go for some Japanese, you may want to select the Miku card which is what I did and receive a free appetizer with your purchase of two entree items. Each card has an exclusive discount and the decks are available in English, Chinese and Japanese, and Spanish. The discounts are one both sides of each of the cards, so you would present the card to the establishment who would mark the card and keep the card for the discount on the opposite side. One thing that is kind of neat is that you can trade these cards with your friends and family.

You may wonder how these cool eateries and shops ended up being chosen to be included in the inaugural deck, well it was a process and a lengthy one at that. From the many blogs they read and people they talked to they drafted up a long list of places they thought would be ideal for the deck, they then contacted or tried to make contact to each and every one, eventually they interviewed 150 businesses, spending time visiting each and every one of them to find out what was unique about each. Then after narrowing it down from 150 businesses they selected 100 and these were the businesses included in the first deck. Seems like an iridous project on one hand on the other hand Brenda and her team did a wondrous task in creating this deck for us the consumers.

So what is Brenda’s background you may ask, well it is not what you think, she was and still is in Real Estate development, having built hotels and restaurants in Vancouver as well as throughout Asia. She grew up in Vancouver and has travelled around the world and back, it is in Vancouver where she decided to produce the first deck of course with the Olympics being a deciding factor of choosing Vancouver as the first destination. The packaging is colorful and catchy, and it is informative, these decks are the perfect gift for your visiting friend, family member or business associate and it is the perfect gift to tell your friends to buy for you!

What’s next for the Travellers Deck, I hear the next cities in the works include Hong Kong, Shanghai, New York, San Francisco …. they are also providing updates online as well developing an iphone application.

Travellers Decks are available at stores around Vancouver including Chapters, London Drugs, The Bay and other cool spots.

http://www.travellersdeck.com/

By: Richard Wolak