If you enjoy exploring a city by wandering around different neighbourhoods and visiting coffee shops, then you’ll love exploring Vancouver. Below, we have curated a list of our favourite cafes, with details of what makes each of these places unique and why we enjoy visiting them (besides the great-tasting coffee, of course).
We’re sucking down coffees as we write this 🙂
Vancouver cafes that are worth your time
Nemesis
The first Vancouver cafe we want to tell you about is Nemesis. It’s consistently named as the best or one of the best. Although it’s renowned for its coffee, they also serve delectable cookies and pastries to go along with your drink. It’s that combination of coffee and pastries that makes Nemesis our go to cafe and why it sits at the top of our list. They do some great brunches too if you’re looking to fill up.
Nemesis has three locations in Gastown, North Vancouver and Great Northern Way (housed in a cool flower shaped building!). If you visit, don’t miss a cornflake cookie or a cronut while you’re at it.
Prototype Coffee
Prototype Coffee is easily one of the best cafes in Vancouver. Their rotating menu offers pour overs, espresso drinks like lattes and cappuccinos, but also all kinds of specialty coffee like honey and orange latte (it’s delicious!). They roast their coffee beans on-site and have over 15 types of beans available for purchase at any given time. Not the cheapest for sure, but it’s definitely quality coffee. As far as food goes, Prototype only has waffle donuts (we love the lemon and peppercorn one!).
They have two locations, one on East Hastings and the other in Mount Pleasant (West 5th Ave). We particularly enjoy the Mount Pleasant location because it’s bright and laptop-friendly. This space is also used by Please! Beverage Co., so you’ll find cocktails and lunch options on the menu as well!
Café Portrait
We absolutely love this cozy little café. It’s full of character with unique art all over the walls, relaxing music and a unique Turkish inspired menu. If you’re looking for artisan brews, this isn’t the place. But if you’re after a cafe with a twist, it’s a great choice. At Cafe Portait, you can order traditional Turkish coffee brewed on sand. It’s small but mighty, with an intense flavour due to its dark roast. It’s rare to come across a Turkish inspired cafe in Vancouver, which makes this cool independent cafe stand out!
If you’re looking for a quick coffee while out and about near English Bay, then this is definitely the perfect spot.
Honest To Pete
This is our favourite independent coffee roaster in Vancouver. They have amazing coffee and roast their beans on-site! While we wouldn’t call it a hole in the wall, the space is quite small with just enough room to stand. However, it has some character, with the owner’s guitars decorating the walls and a gallery and thrift store in the shared space next door.
We love to treat ourselves by pairing our lattes with biscotti which is simply yummy, though their cookies are great too! We usually take our coffee to go, but there is room to sit outside if you wish.
The location is in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, about a 20-minute from Science World (GPS).
Top tip: If you want to enjoy their coffee at home, Honest to Pete offers convenient free delivery within Vancouver!
Revolver
This contemporary coffee shop is yet another Gastown gem. Regardless of what you think about Gastown, this neighbourhood has more fantastic coffee shops and bakeries than any other part of Vancouver! What we like about Revolver is the unique experience that comes with the coffee. The brewing bar looks like a small laboratory and it’s really fun to watch the barista weave their magic right in front of you. The only downside is that the selection of pastries is quite limited. But if you don’t care for pastries, then definitely come here for a pour-over coffee.
You will find Revolver at 325 Cambie St.
Mink
Although Mink specialises in chocolate, they make amazing mocha that changed our opinion about the drink altogether. We find their milk chocolate mocha too sweet, but the one with half-milk chocolate half-dark chocolate is to die for!
Mink has three locations with the downtown location at 863 Hastings St.
Aperture Coffee Bar
Aperture Coffee Bar on Main Street is a motorcycle-theme coffee shop and a jazz bar. It has a cool contemporary vibe that is super relaxing, making it easy to get carried away by the jazz music and spend hours lost in conversation. There’s not much room to hang out in the front, but there’s another room with a long bar and extra seating in the back, so even when it’s busy, you can usually find a spot.
Our go-to drinks? Definitely the espresso affogato and the mocha. The dessert selection is small but tempting and they have a few savoury options too, although we haven’t tried those yet.
Bonus: walk in on a Saturday evening and you’re likely to find a jazz band performing live in the backroom.
49th Parallel
We love to grab some delicious donuts from 49th Parallel whenever we go there for a coffee. They have several locations across the city and they all serve Lucky Donuts (we especially recommend the old-fashioned). If you’re looking for a cozy atmosphere, we suggest visiting their Main Street location.
Just a quick note: do not get confused between 49th Parallel Coffee Roasters and Parallel 49 Brewing Company. We made this mistake ourselves in our early days in Vancouver, though it was a good excuse to try some excellent beers.
Kafka
When we lived in Yaletown, Kafka was our go-to coffee shop for breakfast and lunch. Out of its three downtown locations, we think the Yaletown spot stands out the most, with its trendy design and lively atmosphere. When the weather is right, one of the walls completely opens to the patio outside, creating a perfect spot to people watch and enjoy the sunshine whilst sipping on an iced latte.
Isetta Café Bistro
This cool cafe is a bit further out in West Vancouver and is a great pit stop if you’re coming to explore the Horseshoe Bay area. It’s very popular with cyclists and locals so it’s always bustling and certainly feels like a place where you can be noisy with your friends. Their coffee is great, and they have a large selection of tasty pastries and more substantial savory options.
Isetta is located at 4360 Marine Drive in West Vancouver.
Other Cafes in Vancouver For Great Coffee
The next two places didn’t make the list because of the coffee, but we found them when looking for coffee so they deserve to be mentioned here.
Grounds for Coffee
Not only the coffee is nice, but they also bake amazing cinnamon buns that we can never resist! If you’re looking for the best cinnamon buns in Vancouver then you absolutely must visit this place.
Grounds for Coffee has two locations, one in Kitsilano/Point Grey and the other in East Vancouver.
O-Cha Tea Bar
Just as the name implies, O-Cha Tea Bar specialises in tea, but their coffee is also great. We stumbled upon this place by accident, but we’re so happy we did. Here we discovered the Cold Blaster tea, which is essentially black tea with citrus, honey and cayenne pepper. It has quickly become our go-to drink for the cold winter days, even for Andy, who usually chooses coffee over tea. With a small space and limited seating, this is more of a “grab and go” type of cafe, but it’s definitely worth a stop if you’re in Yaletown.
You’ll find O-Cha Tea Bar at 1116 Homer St.
There are a few places we have yet to visit but have heard great things about:
- Prado
- Propaganda
- Prototype
And a few places that didn’t make it to the main list, but we enjoyed visiting them and think they deserve an honorable mention:
- Pallet Coffee Roasters
- Bean Around the World
- Café Kitsune
- Analog
Of course, this list will likely evolve over time. We love discovering new coffee shops in Vancouver, and Andy will use every possible excuse to get another cup of coffee.
Do you have a favourite coffee shop in Vancouver that is not in this guide? Comment below to let us know about it!
See our other guides here, including where to find the best doughnuts in Vancouver.
