New Westminster holds a distinction that no other city in British Columbia can claim: it was the first capital of the Colony of British Columbia, with Colonel Richard Clement Moody selecting the site in 1858 and the city formally incorporated in 1860, making it Western Canada’s oldest incorporated city. Columbia Street is its spine, running roughly five kilometres east to west along the north bank of the Fraser River, and it has been the commercial centre of the Royal City for well over a century. We come here for the food, for the history, for a walk along the waterfront after a market lunch, and for the particular pleasure of a neighbourhood that rewards wandering.
The good news for visitors arriving from anywhere in Greater Vancouver is that Columbia SkyTrain station, on the Expo Line, puts you right at the centre of everything, with bus routes fanning out to Uptown and Quayside the moment you surface. The street lost nearly all of its original buildings to the devastating Great Fire of 1898, and what rose in its place was a confident, fireproof streetscape of heritage brick that still frames the blocks today. Get comfortable walking from the waterfront at Quayside up through the commercial core and into the residential streets beyond, because the best version of a day on Columbia Street is one with room to wander.
History in Every Brick: The Story of Columbia Street
The easiest way to understand Columbia Street is to stand at the corner near Hyack Square, beside New Westminster SkyTrain station, and look at the buildings around you. Almost everything you see in the core blocks was built after 1898, when the Great Fire swept through and destroyed nearly the entire downtown. The city rebuilt quickly and in brick, which is why the streetscape has a coherent, confident quality that many newer neighbourhoods never quite achieve. A walk along the 600 and 700 blocks today means passing through a corridor of century-old commercial architecture that has housed everything from banks to department stores to, as we will get to shortly, what may be the greatest concentration of bridal boutiques in the province.
One of the most meaningful stops on any walk along Columbia Street is the bronze sculpture at Hyack Square, at 774 Columbia Street adjacent to the SkyTrain station. The work commemorates a photograph taken on October 1, 1940, when five-year-old Warren “Whitey” Bernard broke from the crowd and ran after his father, Private Jack Bernard, as the BC Regiment marched toward the station. Photographer Claude P. Dettloff captured the moment, the Province ran it on its front page the following morning, and images from that frame were picked up by Life, Time, Newsweek, and newspapers around the world. The bronze captures that same stretch of sidewalk, and it is the kind of quiet civic landmark that earns its place.
Further along the street, the Westminster Trust Building at 709 Columbia Street is worth a pause. Built in 1911 and 1912, it was designed in the Chicago School style with fire-resistant and burglar-resistant construction in mind, and it was considered New Westminster’s first skyscraper at the time. Inside today, Waves Coffee House occupies the ground floor beneath ornate plastered ceilings that most people walk past without noticing. Grab a coffee and look up. At 800 Columbia Street, the Canadian Pacific Railway Station from 1899, a chateau-style building that survived the fire-era reconstruction, now houses Kelly O’Bryan’s Restaurant and Carlos O’Bryan’s Pub, and it is a reliable spot for a casual meal in a room with genuine bones.
Where to Eat and Drink Along Columbia Street
Piva Modern Italian at 787 Columbia Street is our go-to recommendation for a sit-down dinner within a short walk of the SkyTrain, and the gnocchi earns the praise it consistently receives. The kitchen works with seasonal ingredients and the menu reflects it, with lunch service Monday through Friday from 11am and weekend brunch beginning at 10am, running through to 10pm every night. Reservations are wise on weekends and available through OpenTable at pivarestaurant.ca. A few blocks west, El Santo at 680 Columbia Street serves contemporary Mexican food that takes the cuisine seriously, with a dinner menu running Monday through Sunday and a weekend brunch that draws a dedicated crowd. Reservations there go through exploretock.com/elsanto.
For something more casual and genuinely good, Shawarma Corner at 629 Columbia Street does halal shawarma wraps, plates, and bowls with consistent quality and generous portions, open through to 10pm on weekdays and 11pm on weekends. Osmow’s Shawarma at 105-408 Columbia Street covers similar territory and runs remarkably late, open until 4am on weekdays, which makes it one of the few real late-night options in the area. Columbia Street Sandwich Company at 550 Columbia Street is the place for a weekday lunch, with house-made soups and baked goods, though readers should note the hours firmly: Monday through Friday, 8am to 3pm, and closed on weekends entirely. Taverna Greka at 326 Columbia Street handles Greek food Wednesday through Sunday in the early evening, and it is a neighbourhood institution worth booking ahead.
The waterfront adds a whole other category of options. River Market at Westminster Quay, at 810 Quayside Drive, is open daily from 10am to 6pm and houses a rotating cast of food stalls, with Re-Up BBQ, Longtail Kitchen, Pamola Bakery and Deli, Butterica Indian Kitchen, and Tre Galli Gelato Caffe among the current tenants. Steel and Oak Brewing at 1319 3rd Avenue, at the end of the Westminster Quay boardwalk, has established itself as one of the better craft taprooms in the Lower Mainland since opening in 2014, with three outdoor spaces and year-round beers including their Royal City Ale and Shiny Things Hazy IPA. They do not run a full kitchen, but food trucks rotate through and the patio on a summer evening is well worth the walk.
Westminster Quay, the Farmers Market, and the Anvil Centre
The waterfront at Westminster Pier Park extends roughly 2.5 kilometres along the Fraser River from the foot of Columbia Street, and it is one of the genuinely great public spaces in the Lower Mainland. The park sits partly on land and partly over the river on thousands of pilings, and the westward expansion project known as Park C opened in early May 2026, adding outdoor fitness equipment, ping pong tables, and new picnic areas to the waterfront stretch. The Fraser River Discovery Centre at 788 Quayside Drive has hands-on exhibits about the river ecosystem and is open Wednesday through Sunday until the end of June, then seven days a week from July 1 through Labour Day. The Samson V Maritime Museum at 880 Quayside Drive is a 1937 steam paddlewheeler retired and turned into a floating museum, open Wednesday and Thursday from 3pm to 8pm and Friday through Sunday from noon to 5pm.
The New West Farmers Market runs every Thursday from 3pm to 7pm through the end of October at Tipperary Park, adjacent to City Hall and about six blocks uphill from the Columbia Street core. Summer Thursdays through August 27 see an expanded footprint with more than 50 vendors spilling into the City Hall parking lot, plus live music and children’s programming. It is a genuinely community-minded market with an equity-access programme and a strong local producer focus, and the Thursday timing makes it an easy add-on to a Columbia Street afternoon. The market website is newwestfarmers.ca for the full vendor and event schedule.
The Anvil Centre at 777 Columbia Street is the cultural anchor of the whole neighbourhood and it is significantly better than most people outside New Westminster realize. The building holds a 361-seat non-proscenium theatre, the New Media Gallery (open Thursday through Saturday, 10am to 5pm), a Community Art Gallery, the New Westminster Museum and Archives with more than 70,000 archival objects, and the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame. The museum and archives run Monday through Thursday from 10am to 8pm and Friday through Sunday from 10am to 5pm. As of June 2026, the exhibition “21st Century Indian” is running through July 30. The building is open to the public at no general admission cost, which makes it an easy stop on any visit. Contact is at 604-515-3830 or anviltheatre.ca for current programming.
Wedding Row, the Shops at New West, and Irving House
The 600 and 700 blocks of Columbia Street have earned the informal title of Wedding Row for good reason: the concentration of bridal boutiques and formalwear galleries here is unlike anything else in BC, and the nickname “Bridal Capital of British Columbia” has stuck for years. Bliss Bridal at 710 Columbia Street and Sposa Wedding World at 642 Columbia Street are both confirmed open as of spring 2026, and the surrounding blocks hold several other established boutiques. If you are in the market for a gown or want to understand why Columbia Street draws so many visitors from across the Lower Mainland on a Saturday, this stretch of the street explains a lot of it.
The Shops at New West at 800 Carnarvon Street is a 50-plus-business shopping centre integrated directly into New Westminster SkyTrain station, and it covers the practical end of things efficiently. Safeway, Shoppers Drug Mart, Landmark Cinemas, a CIBC branch, and a full roster of food options including Big Way Hot Pot, Kioku Kitchen (Japanese, Korean, and Italian fusion at 120-888 Carnarvon Street, open daily from 11:30am), and North Noodle House are all inside. It is not a destination on its own but it makes Columbia Street genuinely livable for the people who call the neighbourhood home, and the SkyTrain integration means it anchors the transit connection for the whole area.
Irving House at 302 Royal Avenue, a short walk north of Columbia Street into the Queen’s Park neighbourhood, is the oldest intact house in the BC Lower Mainland, built in 1865 in the Gothic Revival style for Captain William Irving. It went through a restoration closure in early 2026 and reopened March 28, and it is currently open for tours on Saturday and Sunday only, from noon to 4pm. The house sits within a neighbourhood of heritage homes and tree-lined streets that is worth exploring on foot if you have time after the Columbia Street core, and the Irving House visit pairs naturally with a walk through Queen’s Park itself, a 75-acre forested park established in 1887 with trails, sports fields, and gardens that feel a long way from the SkyTrain for being only a few minutes walk from it.
Getting Your Bearings in the Royal City
New Westminster sits on a slope above the Fraser River, which means Columbia Street and the waterfront are at the lower end of the geography and Uptown is the neighbourhood above, connected by streets that climb north. The Columbia SkyTrain station, which is an underground station on the Expo Line, sits directly below the Shops at New West and is the easiest entry point for most visitors. New Westminster Station, a few blocks away, is a surface-level station beside Hyack Square at the foot of the main commercial blocks and is often the better exit if you want to start at the historic core. The 103 bus runs from Columbia Station to Quayside via Renaissance Square, and the 105 runs Uptown along McNeely Avenue and Agnes Street, so transit covers all the main destinations without needing a car.
The waterfront, Columbia Street itself, and the Queen’s Park neighbourhood to the north each have their own rhythm, and a full day in the Royal City moves naturally between them. Breakfast or a coffee at Waves Coffee House inside the Westminster Trust Building sets a good tone for the heritage architecture context early in the day, the farmers market on a Thursday afternoon anchors the middle of a visit, and the waterfront at Steel and Oak or a walk along the Pier Park boardwalk carries an evening through naturally. For anyone staying longer, Sapperton to the northeast, anchored by Royal Columbian Hospital and the growing Brewery District at 200 East Columbia Street, adds another dimension to what New Westminster offers, and it is well connected by SkyTrain from Columbia or Sapperton stations.
Tips for Getting the Most Out of Columbia Street
Plan any visit to Irving House around the weekend-only hours, Saturday and Sunday from noon to 4pm. The house closed for restoration in early 2026 and only reopened in late March, so it is worth confirming hours at the City of New Westminster website before making it a centrepiece of your visit. The Anvil Centre is more flexible, open seven days a week with extended evening hours Monday through Thursday, which makes it one of the easier cultural stops to work into a weekday afternoon or after-work visit.
If food is a priority, the Columbia Street Sandwich Company at 550 Columbia Street is a weekday-only lunch destination, open Monday through Friday from 8am to 3pm and closed on weekends entirely. Timing your visit around a weekday morning or lunch has the added benefit of the Waves Coffee House opening at 6am on weekdays for early risers. For evenings, Piva at 787 Columbia Street and El Santo at 680 Columbia Street are both reliable with reservation systems that take the uncertainty out of a weekend dinner plan. You can also read our full New Westminster restaurant guide for a broader look at the city.
The waterfront is at its best in the late afternoon and early evening on a clear day, when the light on the Fraser River comes in low and the mountains across the valley catch the last of it. Steel and Oak Brewing does not serve food from its own kitchen, so arriving with an appetite managed elsewhere is wise, though the food truck programme means there is often something on site. Westminster Pier Park is free, fully accessible, and one of the most underrated outdoor spaces in the Lower Mainland. For a complete look at what the waterfront has to offer through all seasons, our Westminster Pier Park day trip guide covers it in detail.
Questions Often Asked
Is Columbia Street easy to reach by SkyTrain?
Yes, two Expo Line stations serve the area: Columbia Station (underground, at the Shops at New West) and New Westminster Station (surface level at Hyack Square, directly on the heritage commercial blocks). From either station you are on Columbia Street within a minute of exiting. Bus routes 103 and 105 extend from Columbia Station to Quayside and Uptown respectively.
What is Wedding Row and where exactly is it?
Wedding Row is the informal name for the stretch of Columbia Street, primarily the 600 and 700 blocks, where multiple bridal boutiques and formalwear galleries operate. Bliss Bridal at 710 Columbia Street and Sposa Wedding World at 642 Columbia Street are two of the confirmed shops in the district as of 2026. The concentration of bridal retailers here has given New Westminster the informal title of Bridal Capital of British Columbia.
When is the New West Farmers Market and where is it held?
The New West Farmers Market runs every Thursday from 3pm to 7pm at Tipperary Park, which sits adjacent to New Westminster City Hall about six blocks north of the Columbia Street core. The 2026 season runs from March 26 through October 29. Summer Thursdays from June through late August see an expanded market footprint with more than 50 vendors, live music, and children’s programming. Full details are at newwestfarmers.ca.
What is the Anvil Centre and is it worth visiting?
The Anvil Centre at 777 Columbia Street is a multi-purpose cultural building that holds the New Westminster Museum and Archives (70,000-plus archival objects), the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame, the New Media Gallery, a Community Art Gallery, and a 361-seat theatre. There is no general admission fee for the galleries and museum. Museum hours are Monday through Thursday from 10am to 8pm and Friday through Sunday from 10am to 5pm. The building itself is open Monday through Thursday from 9am to 8pm and Friday through Sunday from 9am to 5pm.
