Project 11 of 17
Covet Sips + Sweets
Cafés · Cochrane, Alberta
The drive-thru the cookies built — fourteen photographs and one unbroken take.
Covet Sips + Sweets began as cookies.
In 2019 it was Covet Cookies, supplying a local café in Okotoks; by June 2021 it had a storefront of its own — a converted shipping container — and a menu grown into craft soda and artisan coffee. The Cochrane location is the second container, built to replicate the first, standing in the House of Cars parking lot on Railway Street. From the air, Atom2Adam Studio followed a car through the drive-thru in one unbroken twenty-five-second take, and Nathan photographed it from the syrup wall to the serving window in forty-five minutes and forty-nine seconds. One film, fourteen selected photographs, three frames from the air: a whole business, one detail at a time.
- Subject
- A drive-thru for dirty sodas, coffee and sweets in a shipping container on Railway Street in Cochrane — the second Covet, built to replicate the first in Okotoks.
- Intent
- Tell a whole business the way it grew: one detail at a time, from the name on the wall to the lot it stands in.
- Seen
- Black slats and white steel, a wall of syrup pumps, a pop fountain, two wooden-handled portafilters, drinks handed out through a window, and one black mesh patio table.
- Made
- One unbroken aerial take of twenty-five seconds. Fourteen selected photographs from Nathan's forty-five-minute, forty-nine-second session. Three frames cut from the take.
I
The name
covet. — the second name. The first was Covet Cookies.
Here is the first thing worth knowing about Covet Sips + Sweets: it started as cookies. Whitney Smith and Meagan Layton established Covet Cookies in Okotoks in 2019, supplying cookies to a local café. When the pandemic arrived in 2020 they changed the model quickly and delivered to doors. The name on these black slats is the business's second name. The menu outgrew the first.
It started as cookies for somebody else's café. Look what the cookies built.
II
The box
The second container, under its menu banner, on Railway Street.
In June 2021 Covet opened a store of its own: in its own words, “a converted shipping container turned storefront.” Why a container? “It's cost effective and owning a store in a shipping container helps keep costs down,” one of its owners told the Western Wheel. The Cochrane box was built to replicate the Okotoks one, and it stands in the House of Cars parking lot on Railway Street — about two and a half car-lengths of white steel, measured against the car in the film.
III
The bar
A hot one under the group; a shot running into the jug.
The sweets came first and the sips came second. When the storefront opened, the menu grew to include craft soda and artisan coffee, and Covet Cookies became Covet Sips + Sweets. Now look at the machine: both portafilter handles are wood. Look at the cups: every one in these frames wears the same roundel. Two wooden handles and one roundel — that is what attention looks like in a box in a parking lot.
Milk over green, in a clear cup.
Caramel, drizzled down the inside of the cup.
IV
The wall
One pump, on a wall of them.
This is the wall that makes a dirty soda. CochraneNow puts it precisely: a fizzy, alcohol-free drink made with pop, mixed with flavour syrups, fruit purées and cream. Meagan brought the idea north from Utah, where dirty soda first took off. Every pump on this wall is one decision in one cup — and count the pumps. That is a great many decisions.
The fountain, pouring onto pink; a dark one, set down on the bar mat.
V
The lane
Through the window: a caramel one out, an iced coffee out.
Everything in the box ends at a window. The Okotoks original runs a patio and a drive-thru, the Western Wheel reported, and Cochrane was built to replicate it — so the lane matters as much as the bar. Nathan photographed drinks going out through the serving window between 9:13 and 9:17 by his camera's clock: hand to hand, a red plaid sleeve waiting on the other side.
A lid, pressed on before it goes.
One take, twenty-five seconds, one car through the lane.
From the air, the whole drive-thru takes twenty-five seconds. The take never cuts. The camera flies low beside the lane and follows a white Tesla along it: past the menu banner to the first window, then on to the window at the end, where someone leans out to meet it. One car, two windows, one unbroken move. Twenty-five seconds is the entire film, and it is enough.
The end window, leaning out to the car.
Fourteen selected photographs from forty-six minutes, one take of twenty-five seconds. That is how light a production can be.
VI
The patio
Three on the mesh; one in blue.
CochraneNow says Covet is known for its colourful dirty sodas and its oversized gourmet cookies. The patio table makes the first point without a word — coffee-brown, caramel, pink, and a blue so bright it looks lit from inside. Nathan made these between 9:24 and 9:36 by his camera's clock, at one black mesh table beside the sign.
Small, round, and on the way into the dip.
VII
The lot
Railway Street, Cochrane: the lot, the dental centre beside it, the apartment blocks beyond.
And here is the whole of it. A white box in a parking lot on Railway Street, a sign reading Cochrane on the building beside it, apartment blocks across the road. The Western Wheel called the Cochrane site Covet's second permanent location. From cookies for somebody else's café to two storefronts of its own: that is the climb this page has followed, one frame at a time.
Detail → Whole
Next12 / Cochrane Coffee Traders
Covet Sips + Sweets ends. 17 projects in the collection.
