Vesper Lounge

The Vesper Lounge is a pub and social club located at 1645 E 1st Ave off Commercial Drive in the Little Italy neighbourhood of Vancouver. It is open seven days a week from 4pm to 4am, with last call at 3:30am. The lounge occupies the ground floor on the southwest quarter of Il Mercato (Italian for "the Market"), a small two-story urban mall with an indoor plaza, the de facto hub of Little Italy. The lounge is known for its excellent selection of wines and spirits and its tolerance of indoor vaping. The entrance to the Vesper Lounge is located on 1st Avenue next to the smaller south entrance of Il Mercato, whose main entrance is on Commercial Drive on the mall's east side.

In addition to the Vesper Lounge, the ground floor of Il Mercato is home to several other small businesses including an Italian restaurant, Italian caffè, bakery, grocer, liquor store, butcher's shop, medical clinic and dental clinic, and on the upper floor a law office, accounting firm, tailor, Japanese izakaya, pawnbroker and leased private quarters with small enclosed courtyard; there is also a basement with a small private garage, larger public paid parking garage, storeroom and walk-in cooler shared by the mall's businesses, electrical and utility room, loading dock and a wine cellar below the Vesper Lounge. The basement is accessible from ground level behind the mall, due to the building's location on an incline.

The Vesper Lounge dates to the early 1950s, predating the current building which was opened in the early 1980s. Il Mercato is owned by investor and developer Frank Caruso, who also owns the Vesper Lounge and leases the rest of the building's commercial units to independent businesses. Caruso is alleged to have ties to local organised crime, specifically the Auditores, the Pacific Northwest's preeminent mafia family. The Vesper Lounge is a frequent haunt of Auditore members and associates, and the private quarters on the upper floor immediately above the lounge, directly accessible from the office behind the bar and kitchen via a locked private staircase, are rumoured to function as the principal meeting place of the Auditore family's leadership.