You know a bakery is popular when their empty racks are still steaming.

Hot out of the oven since 2003, the Wild Flour Artisan Bakery Café has large, sun-filled windows, brightly painted walls and monthly local artwork exhibits that will make you want to kick up your heels and enjoy the rhythms of downtown Banff. Get there early if you want your choice of baking because their organic loaves rise with the sun and land fresh on the shelves before you’ve even sipped your morning coffee.

Striving to be the locals’ hotspot in this tourist town, Wild Flour is the place to be if you like healthy eating and you like to have options. The café offers raw, vegan, vegetarian and gluten free selections, non-veggie items made with regionally sourced products and even a choice of milk for your organic, fair-trade cappuccino: regular, soy, almond or coconut.

If you’re meeting a friend or looking for a nourishing meal, wake up to their whole-wheat flax seed waffles or for lunch, enjoy a bowl of vegan soup, finished off with a slice of their famous Chocolate Zucchini Loaf. Head outside for smoke-free seating in the summer, or if one of Banff’s riverside benches is beckoning you, take your lunch to go in their compostable and earth-friendly containers.

A hub for the local community, Wild Flour also hosts a variety of monthly events in the evenings, including live music shows, poetry readings, Conversation Cafes and Craft Café Nights.

Just follow the smell of focaccia bread to this Bear Street bakery to take part in the action and snag your very own piece of fresh-baked goodness.