Where To Find Great Coffee In Vancouver
If you enjoy exploring a city by wandering through different neighbourhoods and visiting coffee shops, you’ll have a great time in Vancouver. Below, we’ve curated a list of our favourite cafés, with details on what makes each one unique and why we keep going back – aside from great-tasting coffee, of course.
We’re sucking down coffees as we write this.
Vancouver cafés that are worth your time
Nemesis
The first Vancouver café we want to tell you about is Nemesis. Many people say it’s the best in the city. While it’s renowned for its coffee, they also serve delectable cookies and pastries that go perfectly with your drink. It’s that combination of coffee and pastries that makes Nemesis our go-to café and why it sits at the top of our list. They offer some brunch options as well, but the prices are pretty steep compared to other places, so we usually eat somewhere else.
Nemesis has three locations in Gastown, North Vancouver and Great Northern Way, which is in a cool flower-shaped building. If you go, don’t miss a cornflake cookie or a cronut while you’re at it.
Prototype Coffee
Prototype Coffee is definitely one of the best cafés in Vancouver. They have a rotating menu with pour-overs, espresso drinks and all kinds of specialty coffee like honey and orange lattes (which are delicious!). They roast their beans on-site and usually have more than 15 types available to buy. For food, Prototype has waffle donuts (we love the lemon and peppercorn one!) and a small selection of breakfast and brunch dishes.
They have two locations, one on East Hastings and the other in Mount Pleasant on West 5th Ave. We especially like the Mount Pleasant spot because it’s bright and great for working on a laptop. The space is also shared with Please! Beverage Co., so you can order cocktails too!
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 is not the place. But if you’re after a café with a twist, it’s a great choice. At Cafe Portait, you can try traditional Turkish coffee brewed on sand. It’s small but mighty, with a bold flavour from the dark roast. It’s rare to come across a Turkish café in Vancouver, which makes this independent spot stand out!
If you’re looking for a quick coffee while out and about near English Bay, this is definitely the perfect place to stop.
Honest To Pete
This is our favourite independent coffee roaster in Vancouver. The coffee is excellent and they roast their beans on-site! The space isn’t exactly a hole in the wall, but it’s pretty small with just enough room to stand. Still, it has some character, with the owner’s guitars on the walls and a gallery and thrift store in the shared space next door.
We love to treat ourselves by pairing our lattes with a biscotti, which is simply yummy, though the cookies are great too! We usually get our coffees to go, but there’s room to sit outside if you want to stay.
The location is in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, about a 20-minute walk from Science World.
Top tip: If you want to enjoy Honest To Pete coffee at home, they offer convenient free delivery within Vancouver!
Revolver
This contemporary coffee shop is yet another gem in Gastown. Regardless of what you think of Gastown, this neighbourhood has more fantastic coffee shops and bakeries than anywhere else in Vancouver! 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, definitely come here for a pour-over coffee.
You will find Revolver at 325 Cambie St.
Mink
Mink is known for chocolate, but they also make amazing mochas that changed our opinion about the drink altogether. We find their milk chocolate mocha too sweet, but the one with half milk chocolate and 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-themed coffee shop and a jazz bar. It has a cool modern vibe that’s really relaxing, so it’s easy to get carried away by the jazz music and spend hours lost in conversation. There isn’t much space to hang out in the front, but there’s another room with a long bar and extra seating in the back, so you can usually find a spot even when it’s busy.
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 probably catch a jazz band performing live in the backroom.
49th Parallel
We love to grab some tasty donuts from 49th Parallel when we go there for a coffee. They have several locations around the city, and they all serve Lucky Donuts (we especially recommend the old-fashioned). If you want a cozy atmosphere, we suggest visiting their Main Street location.
Don’t confuse 49th Parallel Coffee Roasters with 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. Of its three downtown locations, we think the Yaletown one stands out the most, with its trendy design and lively atmosphere. When the weather is right, one of the walls opens completely to the patio outside, creating a perfect spot to people-watch and enjoy the sunshine while sipping an iced latte.
Isetta Café Bistro
This cool little café is a bit further out in West Vancouver, but it’s a great pit stop if you’re heading to explore Horseshoe Bay. It’s super popular with cyclists and locals, so it’s always bustling and certainly feels like the kind of place where you can show up with friends and not worry about keeping quiet. The coffee is great and they have a large selection of pastries and substantial savoury options if you’re hungry.
Isetta is located at 4360 Marine Drive in West Vancouver.
Other Great Coffee Places Around Vancouver
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
The coffee here is solid, but the real highlight is the cinnamon buns! Baked in-house, they’re impossible to resist whenever we pass by. If you’re looking for some of the best cinnamon buns in Vancouver, you absolutely need to stop here.
Grounds for Coffee has two locations, one in Kitsilano/Point Grey and the other in East Vancouver.
O-Cha Tea Bar in Yaletown
As the name implies, O-Cha Tea Bar specializes in tea, but their coffee is excellent too. We stumbled upon this place by chance and we’re so happy we did. It was here that we discovered the Cold Blaster tea, essentially black tea mixed with citrus, honey and cayenne pepper. It’s a strong, warming drink that has quickly become our go-to order for the cold winter days, even for Andy, who usually prefers coffee over tea. With its small space and limited seating, this is more of a ‘grab and go’ type of café, but it’s definitely worth a stop if you’re in Yaletown.
Just a heads-up: the Cold Blaster is served very hot (temperature-wise), so be careful not to burn your mouth.
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 honourable 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.
