Mountain Equipment is a very special place for outdoor enthusiasts in Canada. It's our version of REI or Eastern Mountain Sports (for Americans). Back in the late 90's and early 2000's it was the best place to come when the fleece jacket was gaining in popularity. If you ever visited the stores in Vancouver you could see that the store was part of the reason for feeding the West Coast lifestyle!
Fast forward to 2014 and they have done an excellent job in keeping up with the times. You can find an excellent selection of camping, hiking, cycling and outdoor gear both name brand and the house MEC label variety. The MEC house brand was always known to be good quality of a very reasonable price (hence the co-op attitude).
The store here is centred by a very large climbing wall at the back and has a great selection of anything hiking/camping.
I've wanted to check out the cafe here but have yet to. Tonight it was closed so I'll save this for another visit.
***Keep in mind....You need to buy a membership to shop here, as it is a co-op. I bought mine so many moons ago I could not tell you how much they are now.