Life in Surrey, Canada

Hi All,
Me and my family are moving to Surrey in Canada,and as there is a lot of Canadains on this site, I was wondering if some of you can help me by letting me know what life in surrey is like,also what the people are like! We would like to open our own Coffee Shop. Is it wise to invest in a food business,or is there another field we could look into that is already not out there! I would appreciate all the help!

Thanks,
Barb.

My first instinct is that you are joking about moving to Surrey, as most people would never admit it. But if you're serious, here is some info.
Anyone from the Vancouver area knows that Surrey has the worst reputation. There is a lot of crime there. I will apologize in advance for generalizing, but there are two major types of people in Surrey: the immigrants from India living in giant houses and the poor Caucasians in apartments. Recently though, quite a lot of older people are retiring there in new multi-million dollar homes. This area would be around Morgan Creek Golf Course. I personally think there would be enough coffee shops in the area and well-known companies like Starbucks are most popular.

Have you been to Vancouver before? I've never seen a place with more coffee shops than that place, there is a Starbucks at every turn. I guess this could also be a good thing cause demand could be high but still, you're not going to be unique in th emarket thats for sure..

Surrey is known for its sluts, i know a guy wh lived with a girl who could swollow a banana whole, a big banana, she was from surrey.
BC has tones of coffee shops and im often surprised at how many can survive. The town next to mine has about 2000 people (generally lower middle class people) which supports 3 possibly 4 coffee shops, 2 restaurant coffee shops, and a few restaurants on top of that, so dont underestimate british columbias ability to drink coffee.

There are a couple of areas in Surrey that are ok, but it's not a desirable place to live in Vancouver. Having said that, it's probably not that much worse than a surburb of any big city, such as Mississauga or Brampton around Toronto. It's just that Vancouver is such a great city, Surrey suffers by comparison. Having said that, I know of a couple of well-to-do people who live there.

Yes my hushband has been to Vancouver and does know that there is tough competition with coffee shops like Starbucks, My brother owns 2 coffee shops in the uk and my hushband is a manager at one of them, and there is several coffee shops opened near by one of them happens to be starbucks,but our coffee shop happens to be doing really well! call it customer care... We can always look into something else...

There is even an intersection in Vancouver that had a starbucks on 3 of the corners! 3 different ones. But one closed so its down to two, and where the 3rd one was is a Chapters bookstore now, which suprisingly enough has a Starbucks in it!
The really scary thing is they are all ver very busy!
Good luck with your move to Surrey. It has a bad reputation, and in some parts it is deserved, but there are some good neighborhoods and some great people there.
Out of curiousity, how or why did you decide on Surrey?

Family and friends!!!

Why not go inland some to Penticton or Kelwona? The Okanogan Valley, those are areas that are still close to Vancouver (in Canadian terms), but without the heavy population and problems with that.
edit- never been to Surry, but have camped all around in the mountains.

Or go the Vancouver Island, yeah you have to deal with the ferries to get to the mainland, but its beautiful.

Thanks Guys for all your input. Initially it will be Surrey,then later on we will move to the best part of Vancouver.

A Surrey girl is the Canadian equivalent of the Essex girl.

Does anyone know of a cheap Airline where we can purchase cheap tickets to Vancouver from Manchester Int uk! would one way be cheap! Thanks.

never been there, but while I was studying at Universite Laval in Quebec one of my good friends was from Surrey. She said it was well... how Surrey is stereotyped.

Does anybody know of any cheap flights to vancouver!!

Still searching for cheap flights! Can anyone help!!

Barb.

For the cheapest flights look through www.cheapflights.ca or www.cheapflights.co.uk to have a look at who has any deals on.

As far as travel companies in the UK, I've dealt with Canadian Affair quite a bit and they usually are the cheapest.

Noticed recently that www.airtrasaat.com has some good prices as well as www.flyzoom.com and www.flyglobespan.com

Thank-you Globalgirl.

That's www.airtransat.com